DESIGNER / Baby Teeth

What does your work aim to say?

 

My work through this collection explores how femininity can be performed, and clothes used to express our own perceptions of self. The designs are for anyone and everyone who want to embrace their experiences of girlhood, whatever that may mean to you. ‘Baby Teeth’ tells the brand’s story and suggests growth as this being my first commercial collection and the brand’s foundation. It signifies this being the beginning of a journey and indicates that it is going to evolve into something bigger in the future. 

 

Your background/education and any experiences that may have contributed to your evolution in your field?

 

Navigating our world as a young queer person has influenced my design lens and I aim to embrace untraditional expressions of gender through fashion. Currently I am exploring alternative gender expression more extensively through my graduate collection, which invites you into a queer idealistic future that is camp, extravagant, and unconventional. I am in my final year of a bachelor of fashion design at QUT, and studied fashion design and technology at TAFE during high school. Through studying fashion, I have become particularly passionate about sustainable fashion development and how we can continue to create and express ourselves with our environmental footprint at the front of our actions. All pieces available are made from either donated second hand materials or deadstock fabrics, and I am committed to creating minimal waste and environmental impact, and to be entirely transparent about the production of my garments.

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Any people, artists, designers, movements, things that inspire you to pursue making your art?

 

I find my inspiration from my experiences and surroundings, as well as the work of other creatives exploring similar themes, or anything that makes me think. I take a lot of influence from movements such as punk and anti-fashion and how queerness has always been an inherent part of these movements both through art and design.  Currently I am feeling particularly inspired by the designers around me, and other creatives in our local fashion and art scene. On a national scale, Meanjin is underappreciated for its design scene, but there is a huge amount of creativity and collaboration here, and its really exciting to be a part of. 

How would you describe your work in terms of design aesthetics?

This collection I would describe as playfully grungy, mixing soft femininity and harder grungy design features. This brand is a space that celebrates childlike ‘girliness’ in a peculiarly reminiscent way. It takes inspiration from girlhood (in the queerest sense) for all that it was: soft and sheltered, and freaky and dark. What I find most exciting about these pieces is that they are very versatile and can be styled in many different ways to express your creativity and aesthetics.

Random fact about yourself?
 

I’m a huge Vivienne Westwood fan, and got a tattoo dedicated to her exactly two weeks before she passed away.