You’ve just shown at Australian Fashion Week for the first time, how was this experience?
Really exhausting, overwhelming, rewarding, and an honour of sorts. I grew up here and know what a privilege it is, and felt it was the right time as well.
“It was important for me to surround myself at this moment with people who I feel protect me, day to day.” – Alix Higgins
What was behind your casting for this show?
My friends make up a big part of the show, including fellow designers like Amy Crookes and Mei Zhang, artist Chloe Corkran, and many many musicians – Joan Banoit, Solomon and Samuel Frank, Charlie Sundborn and Kyva. It was important for me to surround myself at this moment with people who I feel protect me, day to day. It was also about a focused vision of the future, my friends, a force of nature leading the way.
Two twin brothers walked in the show and a mother and son (Nina Treffkorn, a gallery owner in Sydney, and her son Max Snelling). It was important to make this moment as familial, and strong as it could be.
Talk us through the colour palette for the collection?
The colour palette rejects the colours I am known for – orange, baby blue, yellow and hot pink. I wanted to work with more muted and “adult” colours, soft sandy tones, beige, black and white. Occasionally there are injections of pink and green. The collection is a cartoonish vision of a desert odyssey, so there’s a desert rose, and a cactus. The colours a child would select to depict those things.
“Structuring a 29 piece collection challenges your thought processes too. Trying not to repeat yourself but getting every point across.” – Alix Higgins
What have you learnt from producing a 29-look collection?
It was hell! But I learnt a lot. Physically it was so demanding, even just for fitting days dragging those 29 looks from my studio apartment to a larger fitting space (China Heights gallery hosted us for this which I am forever grateful for). Structuring a collection that size really challenges your thought processes too. rying not to repeat yourself but getting every point across. It was like a puzzle, a game, finding all the right solutions.