This project was part of my final assessment piece for university, and a collaborative work between myself, and fashion student Louisa Webster. From the beginning I wanted this project to be a collaboration of art and fashion, focusing on using all sustainable and eco friendly materials. The philodendron plants are used as a common garden filler in Brisbane and much of Australia, therefore I felt they had somewhat of a ubiquitous identity attached to them, something I felt was fitting to my art practice, which often focuses on the small subtle details in nature.

The whole collaborative process was a great learning curve for both of us I think, and really added another dimension to both our practices. I started out with several colour palette ideas, some of which are shown, and were printed as test runs.

Interview

M.G: first can you describe to me a little bit about your own style and what inspires you?

L.W: A lot of my style and inspiration comes from my family! I inherited a lot of my Mum’s old clothing: think long summery skirts, pure white shirts with a lot of embroidery and random detailing. I keep an eye out and when my relatives are getting rid of clothes, I often find stuff that I like. I’ve got an array of very oversized mens dress shirts that my uncle was getting rid of, which actually served as a bit of an inspiration for the shirt dress I made to go under the suit in our collaboration! I think what I look for in clothing is a sense of uniqueness, I’m drawn to clothes that feel unusual, and make me think about the history and the stories behind them.

M.G: When we first went into this collaboration what were you looking for/ hoping to achieve from the project?

L.W: I didn’t know too much when I first went into the collaboration with you. One of my lecturers had mentioned you and your work to our class at general, and then I saw a photo of one of your prints and I was hooked! It was so vibrant and had so much refined energy, and really felt to me that it would add a unique element to my work. My designs are quite classical, and I felt that collaborating with you would really help to bring a new dimension to my designs!

M.G: What did you like about my own work?

L.W: I think the first thing that drew me to your work was the colours. It was so bright and engaging! And then I loved the actual way your screen printing came across. I felt like it was so much more beautiful from the way you worked, and that there was a story behind the patterns.

M.G: You also went on to later enter the suit into another fashion show outside of university, can you tell me more about that?

L.W: My home town runs an Exhibition every year (Ma Ma Creek Exhibition - look it up!), and it’s one of the highlights of my year. There’s a bunch of categories where people can enter their photography, artwork and sewing ect. and I thought it would be nice to enter it in. I wish that when I was younger I had seen people entering projects like that in my local area, to show what you can do with a sewing machine and your imagination.

M.G: Your now in your final year of university, what projects are you working on?

L.W: At the moment I’m working on my all important final collection. In a few weeks time, I’ll be submitting all my final toiles for the collection, before I spend next semester finessing and working out details like final fabrications. Apart from that, I’m just doing a lot of crotchet as a way to destress!

M.G: Where do you see your work going in the future? Is there any more collaboration work for you on the horizon?

L.W: I’m definitely keen for more collaborations! I thinks it’s a really great way to get inspired and sometimes working on collections by yourself can feel pretty lonely. In the future I’d love to be able to make clothes under my own label but I think I want to spend a few years working for some larger companies to get some more experience in the industry.