What was your childhood dream?

I grew up in a small town of 7,000 people not too far from Niagara Falls. I had a good childhood, but it was a quiet life because it was a small town. We used to get picture magazines like LIFE and Look, and I would find such excitement and inspiration in them, because their photographers showed us the world. I was only 10 or 11 years old, but I couldn’t imagine a more exciting job. I took my first photograph when I was 10 – it was outside on a very cold Christmas Day and that one click of the camera resonated into my career. I still feel the same excitement that developed in those early years.

Were your parents an influence on your career?

In a very positive way. My father had always liked photography and took pictures. Every Friday afternoon we would look through LIFE magazine when it came. It was unimaginable for us, living in such a small town, to think of everything that was out there in the world and depicted in the magazine. It was during World War II when it wasn’t common for people to travel in general, so the great photojournalists showed us what the world was like. I never imagined that I would live to see any of it myself,  but it eventually became my reality.

What first attracted you to photographing celebrities?

It was something that evolved – I never set out to photograph celebrities. Elizabeth Taylor ended up being the catalyst that brought me into photographing celebrities. I worked for Look magazine in New York at that time and I was hired to do fashion and colour photography. In 1969 I was out in California shooting bathing suits on the beach and my boss called me from New York and said I needed to go to Las Vegas where Elizabeth Taylor had agreed to give the magazine an interview. She had said ‘no pictures’, but he told me to go there and see if I could persuade her. So I went there and sat quietly while the journalist had his interview, and at the end of it I walked over to her, took her hand and said, ‘Elizabeth, I’m new at this magazine – can you imagine what an opportunity it would be for me if I could photograph you?’. She thought about it for a moment and finally said, ‘OK, come tomorrow night at 8:30’. She had been ill and hadn’t been formally photographed in two or three years, but the world was wild about her. I photographed her and then the pictures ran all over the world. That was the beginning of my career and within months I was travelling with Judy Garland.

How do you find the true character of someone who has made a living out of fabricating characters?

Ultimately, there’s an individual behind all of that. There are some actors and actresses who have an idea of how they want to be presented and they try to only present that side of themselves. If you’re photographing them in character as someone else, that’s one thing. But to try to get their real person, it’s sometimes not that easy because actors are often masters at being other people. If you get to know somebody, if you have time to, they eventually open up to you. As I’ve become more established, people have come to me and asked me to photograph them. I try to show people as honestly as I can. And I also want people to feel good at the end of a session. I’m a firm believer that when I’m taking pictures of a subject, they have to feel comfortable. I don’t want to be pressing them into anything they don’t want to do, because I respect them. If I can get them to feel comfortable and to be looking at me, and connecting with me as the viewer, you will see in the picture as much honesty as I can possibly bring into it.

What has been your greatest challenge?

The world of photography is incredibly competitive, even more so today. When I came in the late 1950s, people said to me ‘Kid, it’s too late. It’s all happened.’ The funny thing is that they’re still telling young photographers the same thing. But it’s never all happened – you have to adapt to the times and they keep evolving. I worked for at least 15–20 publications that have gone out of business. You have to adapt to new ways of doing things and constantly keep reinventing yourself. As a photographer, I don’t want to be arrogant in any way. You have to be confident enough to do the work but you need to maintain your humility too, because no one wants to be around someone who is full of themselves.

What has been your greatest achievement?

Honestly, I’d say it’s my relationships with people and also still having the opportunity to do what I do. I’m 75 years old and still busy. We work up to six or seven days a week sometimes. I’m in a wonderful place because I love my work and I enjoy talking to people about it. I have no special magic but I keep doing what I do with a passion and joy. I’m so lucky to be able to work with my wife, Françoise. I met her when I was working in Paris years ago with Audrey Hepburn. Her mother was the publicist on the movie that Audrey was working on, called How to Steal A Million, and Françoise came to visit her on set. That was 45 years ago, and we’ve been married for the last 43.

Who inspires you?
When I was in my early twenties I worked for a very important photographer named Irving Penn, who was a photographer for Vogue in New York. I learned so much so quickly working with him. One of the most important things I learned was the importance of preserving one’s work – that’s why I still have all the images that are in the retrospective. Looking at it now, I can’t believe how many exciting projects there have been.  When I put them all end to end I’m amazed. There’s no single magic moment – I just try to make the most out of every one and approach them with an open mind. I’ve worked on films like Out of Africa, Titanic, and Moulin Rouge – my career goes back so far that I did a picture for The Sound of Music! I also was there during the shooting of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. And then I’ve photographed people like Peter O’Toole, Andy Warhol, Katharine Hepburn, Brigitte Bardot, Marilyn Monroe and many others.

What is your dream now?

To be able to keep doing what I’m doing. My wife and I are in good health and our relationship is good. We’re having the time of our lives! We’re celebrating our lifetime, enjoying it and making the most of it.

Where do you find peace in life?

By having a good relationship with my wife and trying to do the right thing always. We’re not here forever and we have to make each day count and always do the best you can. When you’ve done the best you can, no matter what the circumstance, you know you haven’t short-changed yourself in anyway.

What are your words of wisdom?

I really try to help people wherever I can now. When I was very young and I was miraculously hired by Look magazine, it was a huge step to get hired for such a big picture magazine. They hadn’t hired a photographer in 12 years and they came to me. I finally found out that there had been an individual named Morris Gordon who had recommended me and that’s how it all happened. So I found this man and I said to him: ‘Morris, you have no idea what this means to me, having this job. What can I do for you in return?’. He said: ‘Just do the same for somebody else; just pass it along’. I’ve tried to do that ever since – to help people as much as I can and to treat people kindly. And I always tell them to do the same for someone else as they develop their careers. Everyone begins at something and you should help people as much as you can. Make the most of every opportunity and try to help people in any way possible. It’s the right way to do things.

Interview by Mikki Brammer

Photography by Brian Mercer

Remember The Secret Life of Us? It was a bit gritty and a bit shocking, but also fun-loving and harmless all in the one breath. It was Australian drama like we’d never known it. Of the 1.4-million loyal viewers in its first year, most wanted to be best buddies with at least one (but preferably all) of the friends living together in their grungy St Kilda apartment. We wanted gold passes to that rooftop of an afternoon to lounge on sun chairs, swill beer and shoot the breeze with Evan and Alex about love, life, rejection and everything in between.

Sibylla Budd got to live the dream. As one of the lead characters – Gabrielle Kovitch, or Gaby to her friends – she had prime perch on that rooftop alongside Claudia Karvan, Deborah Mailman, Joel Edgerton, Samuel Johnson and other young guns. It was a fortuitous start to her acting career and she holds the memory in a soft spot in her heart. “It was an incredible experience,” Sibylla says wistfully, “… a great crew and it really fit its time. I had no idea what it was going to become.”

Sibylla explains her early acting days were a rollercoaster ride as she went straight from graduating from Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) in 1999 to filming the pilot of The Secret Life of Us, to starring opposite Anthony LaPaglia in the Aussie feature film, The Bank, and then onto the first series of Secret Life in 2001. “I had the most amazing first year out of uni. I just thought, ‘This is what it’s going to be like’,” she laughs at her naivety.

She played Gaby until 2003, after which time Secret Life’s popularity took a dive as audiences grieved over the loss of the entire original cast, or rather, their friends. Sibylla went on to star in other iconic Aussie TV dramas like All Saints, Sea Patrol, Something in the Air and Kath and Kim, as well as home-grown films like The Bet, by Mark Lee, for which she was nominated for an Australian Film Institute award for best supporting actress in 2007. Her love of theatre has seen her work solidly for Melbourne Theatre Company, Company B, Griffin Theatre,
and others.

When asked if she considers herself a success Sibylla audibly cringes down the phone line and almost whispers, “I guess so” – sounding like she would rather implode than come across as arrogant – but explains she measures her success by the fact she is still working. “For me, I’m happy that I can continue to work as an actor in this country. I feel very grateful.” Of the 28 students who enrolled in her drama degree at VCA, she recalls only eight graduated and she knows of only three still working.

Sibylla says the biggest challenge as an actor is the “down time” in between roles. “But as an artist the down time isn’t the fact that you’re strapped for cash but it’s that you miss being creative,” she explains. “You miss putting that energy somewhere. That’s the most challenging part of being an artist in this country. There’s not much work around so it’s knowing what to do with that creativity.” Her goal is to craft a piece from scratch one day – whether a film script, TV show or a play, perhaps as a collaboration with her filmmaker husband.

Sibylla’s childhood dream was to be either an archaeologist or a forensic scientist although she knew she wanted to be an actor when she starred in her first school play in grade four. The play was Oliver Twist and her role was as Fagin. “And I loved it,” she says. “I still remember the feeling of being on stage for the first time. I loved making people laugh. Actually they were probably laughing at me, not with me. They would have been thinking, ‘Who is that little 12-year-old girl with a moustache?!’”

Sibylla’s acting talents don’t run in the family. However, while she used to say her parents weren’t creative she now takes that back. “Mum has suddenly enrolled herself in art school as a painter,” Sibylla says. “Now, looking back, I can see that she was always creative; she just didn’t have time to explore it because she had four kids.” Sibylla is the second-eldest child and the only girl. Her three brothers share her creative streak; one is a journalist, another a screenwriter, and the eldest works for Opera Australia. As kids they expressed themselves like all kids do with dancing and dress ups. “And mum made us a puppet box and we would spend hours doing puppet shows.”

Her love for the stage – be it with puppets or pulling her own strings – has remained true throughout her career. “Theatre is my first love. There is something so electrifying about having an audience. You can get an instant reaction to your work and you can change people, move people and that’s really exhilarating … I feel free when I’m on stage.”

Sibylla’s advice for budding actors is to rise above the negativity; she clearly has concerns about the state of Australia’s film and television industry but diplomatically steers clear of being drawn into the debate. “If you really love acting and you know in your bones that it’s all you want to be doing, then just do it. There’s so much negativity around it. Yes, it’s hard but it’s also so rewarding. Just go for it. We need all the creative people we can get, I reckon.”

Interview by Frances Frangenheim

Photography by Stephen Henry

Long before his models took their first stride onto the catwalk at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week (RAFW), the anticipation for Dion Lee’s spring/summer 2010/11 collection was palpable.

One year earlier he had already piqued the interest of fashion’s elite with his debut collection at RAFW, with a show that took place against the stark concrete background of
a Kings Cross carpark. His 2009/10 collection, inspired by the work of US sculptural artist John Chamberlain, gave glimpses of the young fashion protege’s penchant for sharp tailoring, intricate paper-like folds and futuristic embellishments. Impressed by the designer’s skill, Vogue.com.au editor Damien Woolnough instantly declared Dion a rising talent.

A year later, and the setting was much different. The concrete background was replaced by the sun-drenched panorama of Sydney Harbour, as Dion presented his newest collection at the Sydney Opera House. The impeccable tailoring still shone through, but this collection revealed a softer side to Dion’s creations. There were elegant ensembles in powder blues and lilacs, with floating fabrics pleated and knotted to evoke the ethereal presence of a Greek goddess. Other creations bore the ink-blotted prints of Hermann Rorschach, alluding to the more cerebral nature of Dion’s design process.

Amidst a decidedly lukewarm response towards the other collections at RAFW, praise for Dion’s offering was unbridled. Kirstie Clements, editor of Australian Vogue, credited Dion with the enviable feat of “saving fashion week”. Tim Blanks, front-row stalwart and renowned fashion reviewer for Style.com, called the collection “flawless”, lauding Dion’s originality and attention to detail. Perhaps more significantly, the fashion commentator also named Dion as part of the group of twenty-something male designers whom he labelled “fashion’s Generation Next”, jettisoning him into the company of the likes of London-based Marios Schwab and Proenza Schouler’s Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough.

So where does one go next following the pressure of being heaped with such praise? “I suppose I’ve felt consistent building pressure over the past three years and even through college,” Dion reveals. “I just try to see each new challenge as its own individual thing and try not to think too much about the pressure or let it distract me in anyway. Of course it does distract me sometimes, especially when I’m designing. It’s hard to switch off my brain, let go and focus on what I’m meant to be doing, because there’s so much going on around me and so many people getting involved about your work from the outside. I think I’m getting better at finding that balance between people’s expectations and my own.”

Dion does admit that he was somewhat surprised at the euphoric response to his latest collection. “I think when you’re designing a collection and putting it together, you kind of lose that objectivity about looking at something,” he says, pausing to consider. “I find when designing collections that I get a little bit lost in being overcritical. You kind of expect the worst response to your collection, so it’s a surprise when you hear any different.”

A self-confessed dreamer who loved animals, Dion grew up in Sydney with an artistic introvert for a mother and a father with a background in construction. “My family was an influence on my career in a weird way,” Dion reflects. “My parents are very different from each other and so I kind of feel the fusion of those two backgrounds.”

Dion’s interest in fashion began while he was in high school and he soon set about diligently learning the craft, studying at the Fashion Design Studio at Sydney Institute of Technology, as well as working with Australian designer Tina Kalivas (who herself worked with Alexander McQueen in London). Upon graduating early in 2007, Dion quickly began working on creating his own label. “I think it was a case of one thing leading to another,” Dion says of the choice to take the leap so quickly. “When I was in college I wasn’t really focused on starting
a business, but it was something that just progressively happened and I was just allowing opportunities to unfold and made the most of them.”

While he is now at a point where he doesn’t need to supplement his income with another job, up until six months ago, Dion was the only protagonist in his design story, balancing the creative side as well as the task of running a business. He has since added two other staff to his team to help him shoulder the workload. “The nuts and bolts back-end kind of things are what absorbs a lot of my time,” he says.  “I definitely wouldn’t say it’s been easy but it’s still been an enjoyable process, even though it can often be very painful. I think it comes in waves. You have these waves of really high highs that get you through the low points. It’s about finding a balance.”

With his label stocked at some of Australia’s most coveted boutiques, including Blonde Venus in Brisbane, Dion’s inherent perfectionist side reveals itself when discussing the topic of success. “I think my greatest achievement is kind of a progressive, slow-burning one,” he deflects good-naturedly. “I think it’s still to come. Success is being personally happy with something and meeting your own expectations. To myself, I don’t think I’m successful, but it’s all relative to the final objective. Things are always changing and you’re always building on the next challenge. It’s always relative to what you’ve achieved and what you plan on achieving.”

As for his greatest challenge, on this subject Dion is more candid. “One of the biggest challenges for me has been starting a business in a very reactive way without any training or experience,” he says. “The same can be said for production experience.”

Though he admits a fondness for the fashions of the mid-1990s, Dion’s inspiration for his designs is usually far more complex. “I’m very interested in the construction of the body and how the body and the mind work together,” he reveals. “I find it endlessly fascinating and as a designer it’s something that’s quite hard to get your head around. My designing inspiration is quite abstract. It often comes from several different conflicting references that I don’t understand. But the longer you work on something, it begins to visually make sense and the bits of the puzzle start to fit together. With designing collections, the concept is usually quite old, so you always have something brewing in a way. It’s really eventually about when the timing feels right for an idea and when you feel it’s evolved enough to realise it. It’s more of an instinctual thing and you need to trust your gut on what you feel.”

As Dion looks forward to continuing to evolve his label in the Australian market as well as increasing awareness overseas (he’s recently been in Paris and London showing his wares to prospective buyers), the 24-year-old offers a few sage words for young designers looking for their break. “Getting to know your own approach to design is the most important thing,” he affirms. “Make sure it pleases you before it pleases anyone else. You can always tell when you look at another designer’s work if they’re into it or not, and if it has a sense of honesty about it. Find out what’s personal about your own work, because that’s the part that’s intangible and that nobody can take away from you.”

Interview by Mikki Brammer

Photography by Bec Parsons

Jamie Fame’s sixth collection, Shedding Skin, is hitting shelves around Australia as this story goes to print. Brad explains the range is inspired by its ‘disgustingly wearable’ ethos. “We took Shedding Skin back to our whole idea of disgustingly wearable – that’s what we have on our wall and that’s what we want to be. We don’t want to be a catwalk label; we’re wearable. I think we’ve really nailed that this season.”

The new range features oversized tanks and soft-as-silk tees, floating cotton shirts and cropped dinner jackets that are so feathery light and so carefully tailored that they fit like, well, a second skin. There are also dirty denims and signature leather pieces – shorts, jeans and waistcoats.

You won’t find the garment colours anywhere else because Jamie Fame’s colour palette is custom-dyed, which gives Brad and his team the freedom to be alchemists of sorts and experiment with pared-back colours in the faintest of tones. This season they’ve created off-white, black with olive green undertones, pale skin, worn navy and old grey.

“We’re not showy people,” Brad explains of his team’s approach to Jamie Fame (he collaborates with a pattern maker, and his friend and stylist Aian McLennan, and also called upon local Sunshine Coast photographer Ben Markey – who also shoots for Stab Magazine – to contribute to the Shedding Skin look book). “Subtlety is our aesthetic,” Brad continues. “We’re into muted colours rather than outrageous prints. I think a garment is great if you can wear it over and over again and that’s what we’re working towards.”

All Jamie Fame pieces are made in Australia using premium organic textiles sourced from Sydney and Melbourne, although the cashmere is from Nepal because it’s not available here. “Initially I was just buying t-shirts and screen-printing on them,” Brad shares of his naive entree to fashion, which shows just how far he’s come in six years. He goes on to explain that his label started as a happy accident.

Brad was studying marketing and business at the University of the Sunshine Coast when he began screen-printing t-shirts for his own wardrobe. At first he designed his own patterns and printed them onto bought shirts. Then he got curious about what makes for quality tailoring so he pulled garments apart to read how the seams aligned and patterns were cut. For advice, he often called upon his mother, who had created her own fashion label just before Brad was born.

He can’t remember his childhood dream but says fashion definitely wasn’t in the picture. “I wasn’t the creative one in the family but now I love being creative and the business side of things.” He was 19 when he launched Jamie Fame as a casual clothing range of tees, singlets and hoodies for lads 15–35 plus.

“I had every intention of going into an office job after uni but then I decided to pursue my own label instead,” he says. “I was living at home with my parents and worked in a surf shop, at a friend’s parents’ warehouse, and as a removalist for a while. I had a couple of different jobs to fund each range.”

Brad set about building Jamie Fame slowly, collection by collection, learning business, fashion design, manufacturing and distribution all at the same time and by trial and error. He recalls keeping a close eye on the financial side of things. “I was very conscious of cost and profit from day one, so we were making money, it just wasn’t a lot. I keep a very close eye on profit margins because I know it’s very easy to go bust.”

He muses that starting out at such a young age perhaps gave him a fresh outlook, but in some respects also worked against him. “I was young and I wasn’t as dedicated at the start – and my timing was out. Timing matters a lot in fashion; it makes a huge difference to sales.” Brad is pleased to note the new collection is one of the first that has been designed, sold and distributed perfectly to schedule.

Today the label is stocked in 17 boutique stores around Australia, including Brisbane’s Angus Black in The Valley and Dirtbox in the CBD, as well as Alterior Motif at Cotton Tree on the Sunshine Coast. This is one of the greatest achievements for Brad – the fact that orders keep coming and stockists stay true to the label. “I’m really proud of the fact we’ve had stockists come back year after year and that the orders are getting bigger, which means people like it and it fits correctly, which is nice.”

While other designers might set their sights on promoting their labels through fashion festivals and runway shows, Brad isn’t one of them. “We haven’t done many festivals or fashion weeks. I’m not sure if it would represent what we do 100 percent the way we wantit to.” Instead, Brad is keen to start collaborating on film and photography projects with other creatives.

Being a self-confessed workaholic helps keep the label moving in the right direction and Brad says this is probably one of the reasons he’s still in the game. “When things are tough you work harder and when collections are due you work around the clock if you have to.” His advice for other young designers is not to be disillusioned if they aren’t an overnight success. “Stick with it,” Brad urges. “That’s the only reason we’ve gone anywhere through the tough times. And learn about textiles and fabric – you learn through trial and error. Some things go right and some go wrong. We were lucky to be able to keep some credibility in the industry because we did make some mistakes along the way,” he admits of the very early days. “But in the last two years we’ve picked our stockists, suppliers and fabrics really well.”

Brad has also recently found time to launch an androgynous jewellery label, Burn, with Teagan Barr. It’s been described as ‘geek meets goth’, which he thinks is pretty spot on. The handmade collection of earrings, pendants and rings is an ode to the perils of teenage romance and draws upon heartbroken Shakespearean characters to tell the story. It’s a bit exciting that Australian Vogue’s September issue features Burn earrings on the front cover. Brisbane stockists include Fallow and Dirtbox. Brad says Burn has definitely been easier to launch than Jamie Fame. “Burn has had a good leg-up because it took me a long time to get Jamie Fame up and running – knowing the seasons and how to manage production; it was a long time coming for me to figure all
of that out. Now we start with that experience.”

There is still much Brad wants to achieve with Jamie Fame. “We definitely want to take the label international. And we want to do tighter collections – less pieces, less colours. We want
to trim the fat and go forward with perfectionist pieces.”

With big things ahead it’s lucky, then, that Brad finds peace in being on the clock. “I love surfing and being at home, but my job is extremely peaceful … I’m happiest when I’m working and creating new things.”

Interview by Frances Frangenheim