Christopher Esber did not go to design school to make friends. “I was very head-down,” he says in his Sydney studio, a space he shares with his 30-strong team. “I felt like I was on the clock already.”

Softly spoken, without any of the swagger that makes his clothing stand out, Esber, 36, makes pieces that walk a line between elegantly tailored and decadently supple. With their innovative use of fabrics, handmade hardware and metal corsetry, they are part clothing, part sculpture.