Torres Strait designer Grace Lillian Lee to make historic Paris Couture Fashion Week debut

A Cairns fashion designer, who has previously collaborated with French fashion icon Jean-Paul Gaultier, will make a historic debut at Paris Couture Fashion Week.

Cairns based fashion designer Grace Lillian Lee has flown to Paris to take part in Paris Couture Week with her debut couture collection The Guardians, before embarking in a three-month artist residency at Cite Internationale de Arts in Paris. Photo: Catherine Duffy.

Cairns-based designer Grace Lillian Lee will make her Paris Couture Fashion Week debut with her eight-piece collection, The Guardians, on July 7.

The acclaimed designer, who last year, worked with French fashion icon Jean-Paul Gaultier on his Brisbane Festival exhibition, Fashion Freak Show, will present couture designs and sculpture pieces at Paris Couture Fashion Week, before taking up a three-month residency at Cite de Internationale de Arts in Paris.

“Last year I collaborated with Jean-Paul Gaultier, it was incredible … the creative director, Louise Vesna invited me to collaborate with him, so early last year we went to Paris and I got to meet him and go to his atelier and create a piece for his show,” Ms Lee said.

Model Luke Currie-Richardson wears an item from Grace Lilian Lee's The Dream Weaver : Guardians of Grace collection. Picture: Wendell Levi Teodoro

“So off the back of that, he gave me a letter of support to apply for Cite des Art in the heart of Paris, so I’m doing that for three months, and that starts on July 7, and that’s also the beginning of Paris Couture Fashion Week.”

Ms Lee will showcase eight looks and four sculptures for her debut couture collection.

“It’s a response to my recent solo exhibition called The Dream Weaver: Guardians of Grace, which was shown at the Brisbane Festival in September … and acquired by the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane,” Ms Lee said.

The pieces include traditional Torres Strait Island hand weaving techniques, with each costume representing an immediate family member.

Cairns based fashion designer Grace Lillian Lee will be the first Indigenous Australian woman and the first Torres Strait Islander to independently showcase a collection during Paris Couture Fashion Week, with her debut couture collection, The Guardians. Photo: Catherine Duffy.

“It’s a grasshopper weaving technique that one of my elders, Uncle Ken Thaiday taught me about 15 years ago, and it’s something I still continue to do – it’s a traditional weaving technique commonly done with palm fronds,” she said.

“Each (costume) colour represents a member of my family, blue for my grandfather Lloyd, yellow for my grandmother who loved frangipanis, red for my other grandfather who was Chinese, orange for my father whose Chinese Islander, and green for myself and my partner.”

First Nations Fashion + Design (FNFD) founder Grace Lillian Lee has been awarded a three month residency at the world famous Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris, and will showcase her indigenous woven designs to French fashion houses. Picture: Brendan Radke

Ms Lee, who will be the first recorded Australian Indigenous woman to showcase a collection at the event, said she was proud to represent Torres Strait Islander culture on the global stage.

“It’s historic, it’s never been done before as an independent First Nations woman to showcase at Couture Fashion Week,” she said

“So it’s a very special thing that’s happening and it’s exciting that it’s all being made here at the Cairns TAFE, and we’re now going from Cairns to couture.”

No stranger to the world stage, Ms Lee has also designed looks for American music stars Solange Knowles and SZA.

Originally published as Torres Strait designer Grace Lillian Lee to make historic Paris Couture Fashion Week debut