When I first decided to get into fashion, I had big dreams of where I wanted to take things. Those dreams still exist to this day, and that burning desire still drives me. I was quite raw coming into fashion. The only experience I had was shopping for new threads at my local mall, which I did a lot of, much to the dismay of my parents. I knew I wanted to do fashion, and I had something to say. I didn’t quite know what it was that I wanted to say or how to articulate it at the time or what it would even look like, I just knew I had good taste and I knew what I liked and I knew what I didn’t like. So where do I go from here?, I thought to myself. I had no idea where to start or what to tackle first. So I enrolled in a fashion college in Sydney, so I could get some grounding on the basics and meet new people in that industry.

Now looking back I wouldn’t say I needed to go to fashion college, but I also wouldn’t say it was a waste of time either because I learned a lot being hands-on and meeting new people. I was like a fish out of water that first year. It was a 2-year course, and I dropped out after the first year and got some random odd jobs in the industry. One being retail, and another I was running logistics for a denim company. Now I didn’t know it at the time, but the skills I learned there served me well when I had to do those tasks for my own business starting out. I then took a trip to NY and was very inspired and had plans to go to college at FIT in New York and try to get an internship working under another designer. When I got back to Australia, I changed my plans and just decided to do my own thing.

I just started making samples, and as I would go along, the ideas would snowball and the pieces would evolve from fabrication, to fit to silhouette. I learned a lot by doing this. I knew for myself I had to find the right people to help me communicate my vision into reality, and that’s what I did. From there, I have learned so much just by doing, and I found the hardest hurdle I had to overcome was myself. Once I got out of my own way and just started doing, it started to flow naturally, not without its trials and errors of course. But I learned a lot, if not more, from those too. Even in the beginning, I was young and still trying to figure myself out and what made me tick. And I feel that is a big thing as an artist too, to truly know yourself because few of us do. But when you tap into that, the sky is the limit because we are all unique in our own ways.

That’s what’s cool about where things have evolved 10 or so years later. I evolved into something that I feel is authentic to me at my core and that’s where sports plays a big part. Because sports has shaped my life pretty much, so it has to play a role. From my father being a pro athlete and my mother being very sporty herself to even just growing up in Australia, it is ingrained in the culture. I even had aspirations to live in America because of my idols like Michael Jordan. Again, another nod to sport. So it may be cliché, but just doing it and finding my voice by being true to myself has really gotten me this far, and I’d like to think the sky is the limit! Enjoy your Sunday and here’s to an even better Monday!