‘Significant shift’: Brisbane Fashion Festival organisers reveal the fashion faces to watch

Here’s the new fashion trend - and the new faces - to watch out for at this month’s Brisbane Fashion Festival.

Kylie Lang

10 min read

August 18, 2023 - 6:00AM

QWeekend

Fashion designers Sallyanne Astill, Sara Carney and Emma Puttick. Picture: David Kelly

QWeekend

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The incomparable French designer Coco Chanel said fashion was about more than “dresses only”.

“Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening,” said Chanel, who died in Paris in 1971, aged 87.

One can only imagine how aghast the legendary designer would be when assessing today’s so-called fast fashion – garments made on the cheap, to the detriment of the planet and its people, and which simply don’t last.

Worldwide, some 80 billion pieces of clothing are sold annually, a 400 per cent increase on 20 years ago – and 85 per cent of these end up in landfill, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.

The rapid turnover is also due to micro-trends, instigated by the big chains, and the exploitative “slave-like” labour that makes quick supply possible.

The UNECE says the $3.7 trillion fashion industry produces 20 per cent of global water waste, 10 per cent of carbon emissions, and is a major contributor of plastic pollution in
our oceans.

But if, as Chanel said, fashion has to do with ideas, then there is a wave of creatives driving ethical and sustainable alternatives.

They might lack the ubiquity of global giants, but this is a David and Goliath story with protagonists right here in Queensland. And change begins at home.

Brisbane Fashion Festival director Lindsay Bennett. Photograph: David Kelly

Brisbane Fashion Festival director Lindsay Bennett has seen a “significant sustainability shift” during the 16 years he and partner Bryce Williams have been running the prestigious event, which this year is on from August 21-25.

“We need to support Queensland designers and not allow ourselves to become too lost among international brand names and fast fashion,” Bennett says.

He says while Australians are the second-largest consumers of new textiles after the US, we are becoming more conscious of the detrimental effects of excessive consumption, leading to more informed purchasing decisions.

“Our preference at the festival is not to showcase large international brands guilty of fast fashion practices but those emerging and established Queensland and Australian designers committed to ethically produced fashion.”

SALLY ASTILL, ASTILLE

Fashion is a “fairly dirty business”, says Sally Astill, but it is improving.

“The thing that concerns me most is how workers are treated and paid – if you spend $10 on a garment, someone suffers because of that,” Astill says. “Environmentally, the world is in a very bad place so I have a responsibility as a designer to have a contingency plan as much as I can.”

Astill started her label when she was in her 50s, taking “a big leap” after tossing in a lucrative career in the technology industry. “I’d always wanted to be a fashion designer, but growing up in Townsville in an academic family of engineers, I was encouraged to get a stable job,” she says.

“But you only get one life and I got to a stage where I’d had enough of internal politics and being in a blokey environment, and it was quite stressful managing big projects in cryptography, security and mining automation.”

Gaining a Bachelor of Branded Fashion Design from Torrens University, Astill released her first collection in 2019, adding an “e” to give her label a French nuance.

“I have always been inspired by the way French ladies dress,” she explains. “I dislike forced styling but love the way they put things together, seemingly effortlessly.”

Astill – whose pieces sell online from $199 to $1190 and at Freya in Noosa Heads – employs an array of ethical and sustainable methods. She collaborates with Avodah Global, started in 2021 by Queenslanders Karine Emanouel and Liz Henderson, and which provides sex trafficking survivors and vulnerable workers in Cambodia with training, support, safe employment and fair wages. Avodah Global’s main production facility is in Phnom Penh but Astille’s prototyping and sampling take place
in Brisbane.

Prioritising reducing carbon emissions and conserving time and fabric, Astille also works with Bowen Hills agency The New Garde to bring creative direction to life in the form of 3D modelling with digital pattern making and virtual outfitting through avatars.

“Normally with traditional pattern making you use a lot of fabric, spend time shipping and adjusting samples, but designing with an avatar, you can see the garment in 360-degree view and watch the movement of the fabric,”
she explains.

“Those digital images can be used as NFTs (non-fungible tokens), which essentially means they are unique and cannot be copied, substituted or subdivided. But they can be transferred by the owner and sold online so people can dress their avatar in the online world – yes, it’s
a thing!”

Sally Astill, of Astille. Photograph: David Kelly

Astill describes her garments as “investments”. “They are not throw-away pieces – while I do forecasting and know what the trends are, I don’t follow them too much – you can buy one of my garments and in six years’ time say, ‘This is still fine.’

“They are based on elegant, timeless, well-tailored styles tweaked to make them interesting.”

She says producing low quantities also reduces wastage, and her preferred use of natural fabrics means garments hold their shape and texture. Most can be gently laundered in a washing machine, eliminating the need for dry cleaning, which is not only expensive but “involves lots of pollutants”.

Astill says while the fashion industry is the second worst polluter in the world, everyone should be doing their bit towards sustainability.

“We are part of the circular economy, renting out Astille pieces through (online company) Rntr, and the brass buttons from our upcoming collection are made from old bullet casings used in the Cambodian civil war.

“I am always on the look out for ways to improve our processes.”

astille-designs.com.au

Sara Carney, Desert Lily Vintage

When her husband gave her a sewing machine for her 30th birthday, Sara Carney was not overly impressed. “I laugh now because he wanted me to take up his T-shirts but I needed a different machine for that,” says Carney, whose youngest child was three weeks’ old at the time.

“There was no ‘push present’, just this practical gift that wasn’t even suited to the task,” she says.

Sara Carney, of Desert Lily Vintage. Photograph: David Kelly

In hindsight, that machine was a game changer – personally and professionally.

Carney, now 38, lives with Will, 42, and their sons Hunter, 10, and Tyson, 8, in Innes Park on Bundaberg’s Coral Coast. It’s a far cry from the war zones of Afghanistan she endured as a corporal with the Royal Australian Air Force – and which left her battling PTSD.

“As a veteran, you have a lot of subconscious stuff to deal with,” says Carney, who resigned in 2015, a year after her husband transitioned to the reserves, where he is an Airfield Defence Guard sergeant.

“We wanted a stable environment to raise our family,” she explains. “Like most women, I was quite high functioning, but at night time when I was resting, my brain was trying to process the trauma. I had heavy nightmares, of trying to find my husband, then I’d wake up at 2am with a migraine, start vomiting and be unable to go back to sleep.”

Initially as a way to keep her mind busy, Carney started sewing clothes for her infant sons. Self-taught, she found it so satisfying that she took an online course with the Australian Academy of Fashion – and a new passion was born. “Fashion has been a real blessing – I can focus on something tangible and if I’m not having a good day and make just one dress, I can see and touch what I’ve achieved and be proud of that,” she says.

Carney launched Desert Lily Vintage in 2021 after selling her creations on Facebook Marketplace. “I do women’s resort wear, predominantly using vintage bed linen sourced from op-shops,” she says.

“Think of your mother’s or grandmother’s floral sheets – parts might be faded or have small marks so I have to be careful with how I design and draft, but it’s a great way to be sustainable.”

Carney’s website offers a range of styles (shift dresses sit around the $150 mark) and customers are directed to a fabric library to choose their material.

“Everything is made to order, and made to fit, just like it was in the 1960s and 1970s,” she says.

Desert Lily Vintage’s sizing is from XS to 3XL, and there is a separate collection in new linen. “I can be considerate of all body shapes, which is how fashion should be and how it used to be. Sadly, we’ve lost that storytelling aspect when it comes to our clothing, when you’d go to the dressmaker and have your wardrobe custom-made.”

Carney calls fast fashion a “crisis”.

“No one can trust where their clothes come from or know who’s been exploited in the process. What I do is quite simple – it is more expensive than manufacturing offshore but I have a home studio so I’m not paying rent, I don’t overproduce, and I can guarantee everything is made to professional standards.”

As Carney’s label has grown, she has brought in local seamstresses who work on industrial machines and large cutting tables acquired from an ex-curtain-making business.

“It is amazing to share the craftsmanship of fashion, and it’s a big contradiction to what I used to do,” she says. “While it can be difficult to confront the trauma of my military career, I keep trudging through – fashion saved me in a way.”

desertlilyvintage.com.au

Emma Puttick, Naudic

Being ethical and sustainable means being present and precise for this former scientist, who spends three months of the year in India, where her naturally-dyed fabrics are turned into colourful creations.

“Indians like to do business face-to-face, and being there, I can guarantee their quality of life is good, my business is secure, and products are made to order with no extra runs,” says Puttick, 55. “Brisbane will always be home base but being hands on gives me direct access to the suppliers and craftsmen so I know their working conditions are proper – they’re not sitting in a dungeon; it’s transparent.”

Emma Puttick, of Naudic. Photograph: David Kelly

Dresses, from $139 to $199, comprise 70 per cent of Naudic’s sales, and Puttick says knowing her client base eliminates sampling issues. “If a designer isn’t clear on what they’re looking for it can result in wastage,” she says. “Samples are discarded – I’ve seen huge piles of fabric in India. Additionally, some designers want things within 48 hours, which puts the team under enormous pressure – samples can be poorly made, so the designer refuses to pay and then workers don’t get paid.”

Puttick, who works with two partner suppliers in Delhi and one in Mumbai, says it is crucial to focus on what your brand needs, not “what you think is a pretty thing to have”. “Because we sell online we know our top sellers – 80 per cent of people want our A-line shift every season – and what is not worth repeating. To me, it is important women can wear their dress forever, until it’s threadbare, because that means they’ve bought a sustainable garment.”

Puttick says the past six months have been “the biggest learning curve”. “I’ve been coming to India for 12 years – I used to come in for 10 days, but now I have the freedom to stay longer. There are 33 million people in Delhi, 22 million in Mumbai, and every day I step out the door I meet three new people and get 20 new opportunities.”

Puttick has two children – Anton, 24, and Sophia, 22 – with Swedish partner Mats Tormod, 56. The couple, who met skiing in Austria in 1992, also spend several months of the year in Stockholm. Born in Auckland, Puttick moved to Brisbane aged 12. She studied science at the University of Queensland before gaining an MBA.

It was while working in DNA and fingerprint profiling for the UK’s Home Office that her inspiration for Naudic was sparked. “I’d go to the Portobello Road Market and collect fabrics, and saw an eclectic style of doing patchwork,” she says.

“When we moved to Brisbane in 2003 and started importing jewellery and homewares from Sweden, I began getting lots of comments on my clothes. I mixed pieces from my travels – a patchwork skirt from London with a Scandinavian loose cotton top with embroidery. It suited the relaxed way of dressing in Queensland.”

Puttick met an Indian businessman at a Sydney trade show. “One thing led to another and we said, ‘Let’s try new embroidery on Indian cotton, in seven different colours’, and that was the first Naudic collection,” she says.

Puttick now uses artificial intelligence to generate print design. “I build AI mood boards using Pantone colours and motifs from my travels. My productivity has increased tenfold, and I love the sense of creative freedom.”

naudic.com

Brisbane Fashion Festival Aug 21-25 brisbanefashionfestival.com