In a world where a fashion trend can be rendered defunct in a matter of days, the fashion industry is responsible for an increasingly significant burden on the planet and its people. For Italian-born Orsola de Castro, what began as a mere experiment in creativity has in 14 years evolved to become a passionate journey to redefine the concept of fashion production. Now based in London alongside partner Filippo Ricci, Orsola’s creative sustainable fashion label, From Somewhere, upcycles pre-consumer waste – high-end fashion and textile surplus – into beautiful clothes that aim to establish a balance between consumption and disposal.

The imagination of Orsola de Castro, a spirited little girl growing up in Italy, was occupied with two childhood dreams. Her adventurous spirit and insatiable curiosity fuelled her dreams of living the itinerant life of an archaeologist; her caring, nurturing side compelled her to become a young mother. At the age of 17, she chose to begin her journey as the latter. “I wasn’t ready for the big world of university,” Orsola reflects. “I wanted to have children very young, which was very much against all of my friends’ and family’s principles. It was expected that I would study and make something of myself. But I opted for the other way around and I have to say that it was the best decision that I ever made.”

Around the same time she began her new family, Orsola made the trip from Italy to London, where she has since spent a large part of her life. “I came to London for freedom,” she explains. “I needed to express myself more wildly. I’ve always been horrendously self-sufficient. I wouldn’t say I was running away but rather running towards something.”

The next few years saw the blossoming of her creative side, fuelled by her curiosity and adventurous spirit. She explored the art of printmaking, studying at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice and completing several courses in the UK. These creative forays then, somewhat accidentally, led her to fashion.

“Everything I’ve done in terms of my fashion career is entirely haphazard and by accident,” Orsola laughs on reflection. “At the time I was printing on textile and I was upcycling and buying ancient woodblocks and disfiguring them with Sellotape to change their shape. I printed on textiles with them to make scarves and wallhangings, which were sold in a shop in the UK called The Cross.”

In another twist of upcycling, Orsola also made use of the crocheting skills she learned as child to revive an old cashmere jumper that was full of holes. But instead of covering the holes, she crocheted around them. When the owner of The Cross saw the cashmere jumper, she promptly asked Orsola for ten more to sell in the boutique. “They sold out in one afternoon,” Orsola recalls. “Literally within four months we were in Hong Kong, New York, Browns in London and various other shops. It really was an accidental beginning.”

In 1997, Orsola created the first collection for her fashion label, From Somewhere. While the nature of her method – using vintage clothing to create fashion pieces – was eco-friendly in essence, at the time Orsola was simply driven by creativity. “Back then there were a lot of designers – like Russell Sage and Jessica Ogden – who were dealing with vintage,” she says. “So it was quite trendy to have that element of vintage and it was an easy place to start. It wasn’t about eco being fashionable – eco just didn’t exist then. To a certain extent we had no stigma. It was before the great surge of H&M and fast fashion, so the industry was still a little slower and there was really much less understanding of the whole thing. That was wonderful because you were recognised for your label and not for your eco credentials.”

It wasn’t until 1998 that Orsola felt the first stirrings of her environmental conscience, when From Somewhere started selling some of its pieces through the fashion chain, Jigsaw. “They started sending us all the damaged and unsold cardigans and knitwear from their factories in Hong Kong. At that point I realised not only that the industry discards twice, if not three times, the amount of what the consumer discards in terms of damage, but also that they have absolutely no idea what to do with them,” she says.

She soon discovered that most of what was discarded was being thrown away. “That just seemed so ludicrous to me,” Orsola recalls. “I became more aware of the issue of waste, and by 2000 I was utterly committed to using just pre-consumer waste.”

Around that same time, Orsola’s now business partner, Filippo Ricci, joined From Somewhere. In the decade since, the two have carved a place for themselves in the fashion industry by turning luxury designer pre-consumer waste and textile surplus into stunning, unique garments. Since 2002, From Somewhere has produced its collections in collaboration with the Cooperativa Rinascere in Veneto Italy, which combines 100% upcycling with 100% ethical trading and aims to exist as the antithesis of fast fashion and sweatshop conditions. As part of its operations, the Cooperativa also rehabilitates and re-trains disadvantaged people suffering from mental illness and addictions.

One of their most recent headturning collections was a collaboration with Speedo, using the waste resulting from the Olympic ban on the brand’s neoprene LZR swimsuit to create a collection of dresses. “Speedo decided not to landfill the waste or burn it, but instead gave it for upcycling and we were chosen as their fashion partner,” Orsola explains. “I think Speedo was shocked by the results – we were all shocked by its phenomenal success. The company’s PR estimated that, in terms of press, we reached 50 million people, so it was a really exciting, bizarre thing to happen. It’s not a collection that was designed to be a bestseller – it was designed to be a shocker.”

Another of Orsola and Filippo’s triumphs has been the creation of Estethica, the part of London Fashion Week that showcases London’s ethical fashion industry. “We were very successful at London Fashion Week and the only upcycling/recycling/eco label there for a long time,” Orsola explains of the beginnings of Estethica. Seeing From Somewhere rank consistently amongst the highlights of the festival, the British Fashion Council turned to Orsola and Filippo when looking to create a showcase of ethical fashion that highlighted the high-end aesthetic they had achieved with their brand. Recently celebrating its fifth birthday, Estethica has become an important fixture at London Fashion Week.

On what fuels her creative process, Orsola puts it down to the sheer beauty of chaos. “It really is about some kind of internal disorganisation,” she laughs. “I’m just very messy and disorganised as a human being, but I look at everything in terms of colour. I can’t describe the way I technically or creatively put things together – it just happens. I think it’s probably the fact that I don’t have any fashion training. I put together fabrics that don’t want to be together and I find a way to make it work. I need to work with people who are both very creative and technical, but who are all quite discombobulated and mad than to follow the masses!”

In terms of her most cherished achievements, Orsola prefers to view the journey as a whole. “The challenges and the successes are all in the same cup for me,” she reflects. “The fact that we are an anti-brand, and that we do the opposite of what fashion requires and we’re still here 14 years later. And the fact that we’ve broken every single rule in the book – those are all challenges as well as successes. I profoundly admire the industry and the people who have made it. I’m not anti-industry – I just hope that we can find a better way to celebrate what a great discovery it is. I’m always inspired when I see people using their hands beautifully, whether they’re just literally cutting out a neck from a jumper, or if it’s embroidery or painting; it just fills me with joy.”

As for her dreams for the fashion industry, Orsola asserts that, while it’s on the right track, there’s still a long way to go. “In ten years’ time I don’t think I’m going to see the industry where I want to see it,” she muses. “I think it will be longer than that. I believe that fashion needs to come down a step. I think that aspirational fashion needs to aspire throughout the whole supply chain and I’d love to see an artisan global industry with fashion mimicking the way that it was when it started. Our clothes should speak our politics in a sense, and the industry should be more transparent. I want to see the women who make the clothes we buy as content as the women who buy them.”

Interview by Mikki Brammer

tom gunn is no wallflower label – it is the topic of conversation on fashion blogs, magazines, at fashion weeks and on the street. While Gabrielle Thompson and Shannon Gunn may appear to have had overnight success with their luxury shoe label – which uses exotic skins and quality leathers sourced from some of the same tanneries that sell to the likes of Marni, Prada and Gucci – the journey feels a lot longer from the driving seat.

“We’ve been going since the end of 2007 now and I suppose in terms of building a business it’s not that long,” Gabrielle says, “but when you’re in it, it feels like forever.”

Both girls studied, trained and worked in fashion long before launching tom gunn. Gabrielle grew up in Maleny and when she wasn’t climbing trees on her parents’ avocado orchard, she was sketching. She recalls from the age of seven: “I had plastic templates with a girl posing on them and I used to use piles and piles of paper drawing all kinds of outfits and shoes. I drove my mum nuts because every spare piece of paper was covered in sketches.”

Gabrielle was lost for direction after high school but her mum, a painter, encouraged her to study fashion. Gabrielle enrolled in Moreton Institute of TAFE’s fashion course and fell in love with the content from day one.

After finishing her three-year degree, Gabrielle moved to Dublin (her father is Irish) to work with Irish design label Quin and Donnelly. “I lived with my nanna and I was there for two years. I was doing what they call a shit-kicker job,” she giggles. “I was making tea as a design assistant, so it was half design, half secretary, half lunch girl but you have to start somewhere!”

Gabrielle relished the experience, and learnt so much. “… and while I was there I felt free and realised that shoes were probably my real passion, more so than clothing … I always collected pictures of shoes and I was always visiting shoe shops to see what was happening and that’s what I ended up sketching more in my scribbles than clothing.”

She was accepted into the esteemed London College of Fashion to study shoe design but soon realised she couldn’t afford to live and study in London. Instead, Gabrielle got in touch with a friend in Australia who designed footwear for the Colorado Group. To Gabrielle’s delight, she scored a job at Colorado as a product developer, designing and footwear for men and kids under the Mathers label.

Their stars must have been aligned because Gabrielle and Shannon started at Colorado in the same week in 2003, and also graduated from the same college, albeit at different times. For Gabrielle, the role was a huge learning curve. She travelled the world and learnt everything on the job.

In 2005 Gabrielle applied for Colorado to send her to the Ars Arpel School in Milan to study shoe design over three months, and was thrilled to be accepted. Shannon also scored the opportunity. “It was just amazing learning from the masters who had studied this method of shoemaking,” Gabrielle gushes. “They took us to the Chanel shoe factory and some beautiful tanneries … It was really hard work … That really made me even more obsessed with shoes.”

All the while they were learning, Gabrielle and Shannon were also doing plenty of dreaming. “Probably within a year of meeting each other we started daydreaming about doing our own thing one day because we couldn’t find the shoes that we wanted in Australia,” Gabrielle recalls.

“We both travelled quite a lot, both personally and for work, and we always ended up shopping for shoes overseas. And we just couldn’t understand why there weren’t some independent footwear designers in Australia, instead there were more big companies like Colorado, so I think it took us about four years of coffees and daydreaming to start it.”

In late 2007, Gabrielle and Shannon kick-started the business with savings and loans from their families. The girls bought one-way tickets to Milan and rented an apartment there for four months to secure a manufacturer and source high-end leather suppliers and tanneries.

The goal was to work with luxurious and exotic leathers used by Italian houses like Marni, Gucci and Jimmy Choo, but of course their output would be much smaller – tom gunn’s first collection consisted of just five styles of shoes. Gabrielle and Shannon found a suitable factory eight hours from Milan, and managed to beg their way into a small-run contract.

Gabrielle admits that the greatest business challenge has been balancing the shoes’ price point, which became unworkable as the low Aussie dollar and struggling European economy pushed manufacturing costs sky high. To lower costs significantly, tom gunn has recently moved its manufacturing arm to China to work with a small factory with a focus on the handmade, while still using the same high-quality Italian leathers.

The designers are thrilled to see their stockist list grow year by year – their shoes are stocked in 14 top boutiques across Australia, including Jean Brown, Miss Mouse and Violent Green in Brisbane. “And we’ve just secured our first international stockist for winter in New Zealand and opened up the James Street store as well so it’s been a big turnaround in the past six months,” Gabrielle explains.

While they’ve thought of giving up many times, Gabrielle says there is also a part of them that knows they can’t give in. “There’s just no way; you’re in too far to give up.”

To stay motivated they try to be positive and focus on the things they have achieved, such as their collaboration with young designer Gary Bigeni. It came about after the girls made a list of designers they would love to team up with to design shoes for a presence on the catwalk at Rosemount Fashion Week 2011. Gary Bigeni was at the top of the list.

Asked how they work together successfully as a design duo, Gabrielle explains: “We’re very similar in every way but we’ve noticed that we balance each other out in strengths and weaknesses and particularly in design. So when we sit down together to design, it’s usually quite a fast process because we can create something we both love together. It’s not Shannon designing and me designing; it’s the two of us together. Usually we grab the pencil off each other and scribble on parts of the drawings, so it’s definitely collaborative and when we try to design by ourselves we end up with something that’s not tom gunn.”

Gabrielle’s advice to other young designers stems from the duo’s own experience. “Always follow your passion and dream, even if you can’t see how it will work,” she advises. “Through your dreaming and planning, something will happen, so don’t give up.”

Interview by Frances Frangenheim

“It’s so weird; it’s what I’ve made, what I’ve been thinking about – it’s so personal,” Karla Spetic explains of the experience of seeing her garments worn on the street.

But when asked to describe her style, Karla apologises and notes she can’t. “I’m actually still trying to figure out my style,” she starts. “I do like clean things; I like simplicity. My pieces aren’t complicated.” This unfussy design aesthetic mimics her approach to life. Karla doesn’t believe in planning, but rather prefers to get on with things. She comes across as energetic and driven, in a refreshing, self-effacing way. This attitude no doubt helped her to launch her namesake label from scratch in 2008.

At the time, she’d spent 18 months helping to run The Graduate store in Sydney’s The Strand Arcade with five other gung-ho graduates from the Sydney Fashion Design Studio. The experience gave her invaluable insight into running a retail business and in her spare time she created “bits and pieces” to sell on the racks.

When an opportunity arose to apply for a spot in the 2008 Rosemount Australian Fashion Week, Karla jumped at it. “I just went into it and had a shot. I don’t know what I was thinking … I really threw myself in the deep end.”

Karla submitted an application with a portfolio of the ad hoc pieces she’d crafted for the graduate store. “It certainly wasn’t a proper label but I think the judges wanted to see that you wanted to work in fashion, not just for fun or to be famous but because this is what you love and you want to make a career out of it.” Karla must have impressed them, because she scored a solo show.

“During the show I was numb, I was so nervous,” she recalls. “I was thinking: ‘I’m actually doing this – what am I thinking? All these people have come to see my show and I’m not happy with what I’ve done at all!’” The industry feedback was glowing and her stockist list (which now includes The Loft in Brisbane) quickly grew – not just at home but also internationally.

Karla knew at high school that she wanted to make clothes for a living, but her childhood dream wasn’t so career-minded. “When I was little my dream was for the war to end in Croatia. That’s what I remember because my childhood years were spent in Croatia before the war, and after the war I realised I didn’t have a childhood at all. It was a nightmare. I just wanted to live in a happy place.”

An only child, Karla was seven when the war of independence broke out in Croatia. Her family moved to Germany and then returned to Croatia while they planned their next steps. They arrived as refugees in Australia in 1993. Karla was 10.

“I think I was numb,” she recalls of the big move. “I was going to the other side of the world and everything was so different – the culture, the mentality, the smells and sounds, everything. I remember when we landed in Brisbane there was that whole tropical feel. There were parrots flying everywhere! In Croatia, you don’t have parrots flying around or living outside a cage, so I was shocked. I thought, what is this place? There are parrots everywhere. And it’s so humid!” she laughs.

Of course the shock wore off over time and Karla now calls Australia home. “I’ve lived here most of my life, so now I feel this is my home more than Croatia but, in saying that, when I go back there are so many smells and memories that come back to me. My whole family is back there so I feel that’s where I belong as well … I think I’m lucky; I have two amazing homes.”

Karla completed high school in Nambour and enrolled in a two-year fashion course at the Sunshine Coast Institute of TAFE. There she learnt the basics of sewing and pattern making. “It was really helpful but then I realised that I couldn’t stay living on the Sunshine Coast because I was really bored; I just wasn’t inspired.”

Karla moved to Sydney and applied for different fashion courses; she was accepted into the TAFE’s esteemed Sydney Fashion Design Studio. “I was so excited but it didn’t dawn on me until I went into my first class just how lucky I was and how hard it was to get in. There were minimum spaces available. So when you least expect it, good things happen.”

Karla doesn’t name drop, but the TAFE website notes that famous alumni include Akira Isogawa, Alex Perry, Wayne Cooper, Nicky Zimmermann, Lisa Ho, Michelle Jank, Dion Lee and Bianca Spender.

She says her greatest challenge every season is producing a collection. But even when times get tough, Karla looks forward. “I never ever consider giving up,” she states emphatically. “Sure, it gets hard when things go wrong… but things always work out in the end. I love what I do and I couldn’t see myself doing anything else, so I never think of giving up when I’ve worked so hard to get to where I am now. I don’t want to throw it all away … I’m motivated because I’m always learning something new and I have creative freedom. It’s so exciting.”

Karla doesn’t search for design inspiration like she would a lost earring. “I find it’s more organic than that. I guess I look to my surroundings. For my autumn and winter collection this year, I found beauty in the old terrace buildings and their unusual colour combinations. I wanted to capture what I find beautiful – things we don’t really see that are right in front of us.” Photographic prints have begun to feature in her work, so her customers can “wear what we see”.

Of what she has yet to achieve with her work, Karla notes “longevity” is as important as improving as a designer. Her advice to others starting out is to trust your gut instinct. “Just do what you feel is right and be really persistent and patient,” she urges. “And don’t have too many expectations. Do it because you love it, otherwise it’s a waste of time.”

Karla says she finds peace when ideas are running through her head. “I don’t draw my designs. It would make it so much easier if I did sketch but then I get bored with it and don’t want to look at it anymore,” she laughs. “I make a conscious decision to keep everything jumbled in my head so I never know what’s going to come out or how it will end up looking. So when things come to life – with my colours and prints and shapes and patterns draped on a dummy – that’s when I find peace; when I feel that satisfaction. And I feel really happy about that.”

Interview by Frances Frangenheim

Samantha Pleet’s optimism is infectious. It could be the audible smile that cheerfully echoes down the phone line as she sits down to chat on a busy Friday night in New York. Or perhaps the enthusiastic manner in which she approaches every question, each answer bubbling with an obvious passion for life. Whatever it might be, it’s clear that it’s an optimism that has imbued every moment of her 29 years.

“I love the world and the planet that I live in,” she answers happily, when asked where her optimism comes from. “We’re so lucky to be here in the world that we live in and there should be a balance in the universe and I want to do my part.”
For Samantha, playing her part in the world began at a very young age, growing up in Philadelphia, where she would spend her time cleaning the local park and trying to save endangered dolphins. When she wasn’t trying to save the world, Samantha had also discovered her love for performing. “I wanted to be an actress,” she reveals of her childhood dream. “I would put together costumes for plays that my friends and I would put on together. What I probably really wanted to be was a director. I would create these whole environments and feelings of roles and characters for people to play and change into.”

Samantha wandered down several different creative paths before settling on a career in fashion. Her love for acting was set aside in high school when she discovered the world of fine arts – in particular, painting. Her talent was so impressive that, after high school, she was accepted into New York’s prestigious The Pratt Institute to study painting. But soon even painting was set aside, when Samantha discovered her true love – fashion – switching to that major after one year at Pratt.
On why she made the switch, Samantha reveals that it was once again a childhood influence. “My grandmother introduced me to fashion at a very young age,” she recalls. “She is extremely stylish and she would give me all of her old clothes and I’d wear them as dress ups. My mum also taught me how to sew, so we’ve done sewing projects my whole life. Fashion interested me then because it incorporated so many things – photography, film, music, pop culture, and everything. It’s kind of like anthropology for the world you live in; it writes the stories and describes it in clothes. I think all the interests that I had came together, and clothes were the best way for me to print out my feelings.”

The month before she graduated from Pratt, Samantha decided to start her own namesake fashion label. She had already been making clothes for herself, repurposing men’s shirts into dresses and rompers, and one day whilst shopping in one of her favourite stores on New York’s Lower East Side, wearing her own designs, the shop assistant enquired as to where she had bought her outfit. Samantha admitted that she had made it herself and, to her delight, was asked to bring some more items from her line to be sold in the store. In 2006, Samantha debuted her first fashion collection.

In the five years since then, Samantha has completed 11 more collections, as well as a diffusion line for Urban Outfitters called Rapscallion by Samantha Pleet. With Brooklyn now her beloved home, Samantha says that inspiration lies right on her doorstep in New York. “Living in Brooklyn, I’m just inspired by all the artists, musicians, stylists and photographers – everyone around me,” she marvels. “There’s just so much going on creatively in the world and we’re all kind of growing and creating together to make it happen.”

The inspiration for her latest fall 2011 collection, however, came from a little further afield – a recent trip to Iceland. “This collection is really inspired by travelling and the places I go,” she reveals. “Iceland is such a magical land with so much mystery. It just has this epic adventure feeling to it, so I wanted to bring that into my collection and to create a line of clothes that was from an unknown tribe long ago. I also used to want to be an anthropologist and I’m inspired by different civilisations and communities. I don’t really read fashion magazines; most of the time it’s National Geographic! I’m kind of a dork sometimes, but I think that’s what brings me new ideas that no one else has had.”

Another of Samantha’s great inspirations is film, particularly French New Wave, Czech New Wave and the work of David Lynch. As an added element to each of her collections, Samantha creates a short film to embody the overall mood and aesthetic of what she is creating. “It’s fun for me because I get to see the collection come to life as part of the film,” she explains of her motivation. “For my customers, it creates the mood and takes them into the world I’m trying to create with the collection and they can really experience it. I just really love films and I get so much reference from them.”

The short film for her spring 2011 collection featured ethereal beauty Victoria Legrand of the band Beach House (wearing Samantha Pleet, of course) in a story about two lovers spending their last summer together. “Victoria is such a powerful personality and really greatly represented my collection,” Samantha explains. “I’m really inspired by musicians and the local music scene happening around me. Creative girls from around the world are inspiring to me.“

With her love for the planet still as strong as ever, Samantha has shown several of her collections as part of the Green Shows at New York Fashion Week, which feature some of the city’s most exciting eco designers. Sourcing many of her fabrics locally and using organic and sustainable fabrics, such as Ultrasuede and Chinese mudsilk, where possible, a sustainable footprint is key for Samantha when developing her collections. “I think it’s the responsibility of anyone who runs their own business to make decisions that are as ethical as possible,” she says. “I’m also really drawn to organic fabrics and natural materials. I love the way they feel and look – things that appear more washed and not bleached like the mass market. I really love the uniqueness of the fabrics that you find in things that are organic.”

Samantha ponders the idea that one day all the runways will be dominated by sustainable fashion. ”I think it’s definitely going to happen because we have no other choice,” she affirms. “The world we live in consumes products and we need to move in that direction if we want to live in an environment that is healthy and can sustain us. It’s about making that extra effort to find that fabric that doesn’t have such an impact on the world.” And while, for now, Samantha might still only be one of the pioneers of eco fashion, she’ll continue, as always, to do her part.“I know I can’t save the world by myself,” she smiles. “But I try to do everything I can to make the world a happy place to be.”

Interview by Mikki Brammer

It is still early days for Emma Rea, having launched her label in 2008. Just three years on, her collections are making waves on cult fashion blogs and in magazines such as Russh, Fallen, Oyster and Grazia, with stockists across Australia. Using a moody colour palette mostly of blacks (yes, even in summer and spring), Emma creates an intriguing range of feather-light silk and cotton couture pieces – hooded maxis, tailored jackets, floaty slips and billowy skirts – that swing between the romantic, poetic, dark and ethereal.

Not one to play it safe, Emma finds it difficult to define her style because it keeps changing. Her upcoming collection is a departure from her previous work. “The collection I’m working on is much more feminine than previous collections,” Emma shares. “I guess most people have pigeon-holed my stuff as androgynous, as having masculine elements to it … It changes all the time but it’s not about trends; it’s that you’re always pushing yourself and if I stick to the same aesthetic every time, then that’s not really doing anything groundbreaking, is it?”

Emma’s approach to design, in part, stems from her play as a little girl. She was born in Sydney and grew up in rural towns – in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales and near Samford in Brisbane – so she says she certainly didn’t have her finger on the pulse of what was fashionable. “Let’s just say I’d never heard of Chanel,” she laughs. “I didn’t know about fashion designers, but I knew about clothing more from the perspective of dressing up and being transported in my mind to another place.”
Her collections exude that same sense of voyeurism and dreaming, taking inspiration from songs, artists, and sometimes history. Her first collection, Poetry, was an ode to Patti Smith songs, her second, Houses of the Holy to Led Zeppelin, while in 2010 The Raven took inspiration from Victorian mourning attire where widows were expected to wear black and stick to strict fabrics and styles but sought to be fashionable in the process. She hints that photographer Robert Mapplethorpe is the inspiration behind her next collection.

Emma started her own label as soon as she graduated from Metropolitan South Institute of TAFE. She hadn’t planned to be her own boss but there weren’t many other options available. “When I graduated in 2008, I was looking for a job in the industry, but good jobs are as rare as hen’s teeth,” Emma notes. “So many people graduate every year, but the positions available to graduates are like machinist or maybe junior pattern maker, if you’re lucky. But they’re very entry-level positions and often in production rather than design.”

In the back of her mind, she recalled her lecturers’ advice to first work on other labels and make mistakes with other people’s money, but Emma jumped the other way. “I decided to start the label and see how I went and at the time I was lucky enough to have a connection with Nat Denning who owns boutiques in Brisbane,” she says. Natalie pre-ordered the first season for her stores Fallow and Bessie Head, and two quality boutiques in Bondi also placed orders.
“It definitely gave me hope for the future,” Emma notes of those early clients. “If I hadn’t started out as strongly as I did, even though it was small potatoes, I don’t know what would have happened.” She recalls being amazed that her early stockists paid for pieces in advance, before the collection was even produced. “That was a sign for me that people believed in me.”

The Global Financial Crisis rolled into town just six months after Emma’s label hit the shelves. It was a major challenge. “It was a real barrier in terms of growth,” Emma says. “Nobody wanted to pick up new labels.”
Asked if she considered giving up when it got tough, Emma admits, “Yeah, I’ve had moments of going: ‘This is all too hard.’ And I have this vision of going to live on a desert island. But it’s not like I would get a job in government working nine to five. I don’t imagine doing anything else.”

When times are tough she stays motivated by distracting herself with a massage or a beach swim. “I’ll go and do something nice for myself, or I think about all the success I’ve had so far and I think no matter what is happening right now I know this feeling is going to pass or be resolved.”

Her biggest achievement is that she’s found her dream career. “I’m doing what I love and what I’ve always wanted to do. And for someone who is really self critical, which I am, the fact that I am doing this and following what is a crazy dream – that means more to me than anything else.”

Her newfound career is even sweeter because it took Emma a few false starts to find design. After high school she enrolled in art college, but was more interested in her friend’s degree in fashion. She started making clothes as a hobby to sell at the Fortitude Valley markets in 2002 and, by 2004, had started a three-year fashion diploma at Mt Gravatt. “I just felt this really strong pull towards it,” she says of the move to fashion. “Again, it was a hobby, something I did for pleasure, and so I didn’t have any concept then about what it would be like to have a business.”

Emma learnt the hard way that it’s damn tough. She works 12-hour days, often seven days per week. “The label is always 24/7,” she says. When the question of success pops up Emma hesitates, and then notes: “Personal fulfilment is what constitutes success for me so, yeah, I do consider myself a success, but only in my own eyes. I don’t really care what anyone else thinks.”

The words of wisdom she lives by are those her grandfather shared with her while she was in high school. “I was studying for exams and I was really exhausted and he said: ‘All you need to do is show up; the rest will take care of itself’. So when I’m really under the pump these days I just remember that.”

Asked what she loves about her job, Emma notes dreamily, “I feel like I am creating this thing; the label is my baby. I love that I’m doing what I wanted to be doing and I love the fact I work for myself. I love meeting people who inspire me. And I love doing research on a collection and looking at inspiring artworks and photo shoots and bits and pieces. That’s when I go back to when it was just a hobby.”

Interview by Frances Frangenheim

Taking the winning series of photos, named ‘Crackwhores’, in an abandoned house, Honia takes a trashy and grungy angle to her photography which focuses on fashion. Raw in individuality and style, both photographically and fashion wise, mixes of inspiration from Eddie Sedgwick and Wolfgang Tillmans can be found in her images. Featuring a group of Honia’s friends, ‘Crackwhores’ brings work and play together, a very important combination. Honia not only posses talent but an inspiring perception on life. Believing life is here for us to take chances and be who you want to be, there is no doubt that down the track she will live her dream of working for a fashion magazine.

I’ve seen a lot of shoes lately. Colourful, crazy, cute. Sexy, strange, simple. Irresistible, irresponsible and insidious. But none which were recycled, reused or returned to life, not to mention visually appealing, like those found on Terra Plana, and its family of shoe brands including Worn Again, Vivobarefoot and Dopie. Winners of The Observers Ethical Fashion Product of the Year Award in 2007, Terra Plana bids to develop ‘the best feeling designer shoe brand in the world’. With processes including souring locally available resources such as bicycle tyres, car seat belts and reclaimed jeans, utilizing a unique stitching design which cuts down on the need for solvent glues and aiming to make the shoe as light as possible, Terra Plana’s range of shoes have a blueprint to create a very light footprint indeed.

If you are a female who easily falls for devilishly looking shoes, look away now. 25-year-old, Toronto-based graffitist Matthieu Missiaen has the one-of-a-kind provisions which may just break your heart.

The Parisian artist handcrafts his shoes under the label Ndeur. The line ranges from urban heels to old-school high-tops and are fashioned using a canvas of vintage leather footwear, on which he doodles street-art-inspired scenes with oil-based paints.

The effect is fresh – a stylistic palate cleanser after the bland taste of the usual models.

In the short time since his introduction into streetwear boutique The Rage (13 Kensignton Avenue, Toronto, ON, Canada) Missaien has been raved about in several publications and included in Vans Shoe show in Toronto.

To add to the mystique of owning your own wearable piece of shoe-art, all of Missiaen’s works are one-of-a-kind. On The Rage’s Etsy site, you enter your feet measurements and style requests for hand-tailored effect. They’re also reasonably priced – from US$120 – $180 – so the savvy shoe-ophiles among us will have no trouble chalking this one up to a necessary cultural investment.

(sourced with help from L.Harper)