Are you from Cairns?
yes I am

Can you tell us why you chose fashion design for your career?
Fashion kind of chose me, it all started with me and my friends squatting in Sydney and being really poor and not being able to afford to buy clothes, from only having one set of clothes and from that I started fixing my own and making clothes. Friends started seeing what I was wearing and it pretty much progressed out of necessity. I couldn’t afford clothing so I started making clothes that I thought looked good

How long ago was that now?
I left school in 1990 and about 4 hours later I was on a plane and ended up in Redfern Sydney. Moved into a four story warehouse squat with punk rockers, transvestites, you name it. That’s my background and that is where I was influenced, like meeting them and living there has influenced me my whole life. In the way I treat people, politics, art and about being open minded and not judging people by what they wear and how they wear it. That was in early 1990, but my family have always told me that from when I was born when I was a kid my Mum and Dad would try to dress me and Id be like NO that’s itchy, really pedantic about the way I looked and the way the materials felt

What type of materials do you like to work with?
Since I left Cairns five years ago I have been in Melbourne and I started doing this thing where I was making clothes from found objects, not like bits of metal more like Id be walking down Brunswick Street and find a discarded pair of jeans and I would take them home take bits off them and add bits onto them and decorate them, I use items that have been given to me or found. I like to get clothes from Op shops and then pulling them apart and adding things to them just changing the whole design of them

So your designs really fitted into the Envirofiesta?
Defiantly yes

Can you tell us what the envirofiesta means to you?
The Envirofiesta to me is a gathering of people and ideas, when I think of the Envirofiesta I don’t just think of the environment, such as the trees and stuff but the environment you place yourself in and how you feed that environment, how you react to it, that’s what got me into it and about being open, “I think”, like I notice that at the Envirofiesta there are so many different people from so many different walks of life but they are all there to celebrate. It’s a good time for artists in Cairns, there are so many artists here from all over the world, and we are all doing our own thing not to many people collaborate. The Envirofiesta is a great opportunity for musicians, poets, artists, fashion designers, make-up artists, hairdressers and Dj`s to come together and actually realise that al! though Cairns is quite a small city there are so many talented people in the one spot. I did not realise how many talented people are here, there are so many understated artists here. Part of the reason I like to be in Cairns you don’t have any other stimuli up here, not much going on there are good art shows and stuff, but what I have here is my brain and what I do is read a lot, magazines and stuff so it is really interesting for me to live here for a while and then go back to Sydney or Melbourne and see my progression through not having been in touch with the fashion industry as such, no stimuli directly from it

Have you been involved with Envirofiesta before?
Yes this is my second time, but it was really good for me to take part this time. I did my stuff the first time and I really liked it, but this Envirofiesta I really saw my own progression. I have studied fashion here and fashion business at RMIT in Melbourne but I left both those courses thinking I did not pick up much, but it was not till a couple of months ago and till now that I realised, “hang on”, I did pick up a lot of stuff and now I’m just applying it.

Can you tell us about the designs you contributed to the Envirofest this year?
This is going to make me sound really pretentious but I’m not! I just wanted the quality of my garments to show through, not to look as though they were recycled, but they were, it was all about re-vamping something re-styling, re- birthing something, like I love it when someone gives you a item of clothing and they say, “I’m so over wearing this it is so old”, and I get to work and do my thing to it and its like new again, its like reincarnation. I read this book a few years ago called “Fabulous Nobody’s” it was about a woman whose clothes spoke to her and stuff, so she could never throw her clothes away, she said that her clothes made her feel a certain way and that is what I want the pieces I make for people to do. My models at the envirofiesta, Nick and Christian both on putting my clot! hes on pulled there shoulders back the clothes made them feel sexy, they gave them a vibe. I really love to make pieces for people and to see the changes just purely from what they are wearing.

Generally what type of response to you receive from your clothes?
I have been getting a better response to them here in Cairns. In Melbourne I was selling pieces and people were buying stuff from me, but up here what I really wanted to crack was; that I feel that the male fashions are really boring and there is no one trying to like push the boundaries. My whole thing with this parade was to like have no stereotypes over my clothes, I just wanted them to be cutting edge male fashion and it has been such a bonus that a lot of heterosexual men in particular have been coming up to me and saying I generally would not wear it but they work and I really enjoyed seeing them, so I g! ot what I wanted feedback from a broad view of men, it was a big pat on the back for me because my vision worked.

Are your clothes available in Cairns at the moment?
No I’m leaving soon for Tokyo, I only got asked today to put my fashions in to a shop in Cairns, but I’m not going to do it, , I was asked today to be involved in another parade here in Cairns so I will do that. I’m going to go to Tokyo to release my clothes but not in Cairns as yet.

Tokyo how did that come about do you have contacts there?
Through doing my T shirt designs in Melbourne I attracted a lot of interest through my designs. I do a lot of work for my friends and don’t really have an income, I under pay myself. With the Japanese they have a disposable income and I’m not turning into some type of capitalist or anything but they buy my stuff and I get to pay the people that have helped me to do it all and I have a bit left over so I can treat myself

Is Japan going to be a permanent thing? Are you setting yourself up there?
No! my decision to go to Tokyo is because when I was studying at RMIT I really enjoyed marketing and I have been watching the Japanese markets and they really like merchandising and I feel that if I go there and being myself I will be able to put forward and market my clothes well in that environment and they the Japanese people will love it. I do plan to go to Europe

What then New York, Paris, London?
Eastern Europe, I’m going to go from Tokyo to Scilly, I will find a place to live there that will be my base in the winter but in the summer I want to go to Berlin and to travel around Eastern Europe buy clothing from independent designers just collect stuff to bring back with me. I also want to learn to make shoes while I’m there.

You have had people helping you with your designs can you explain?
Well I was born with ADD so my attention span is really short, now I can sew clothing but the quality the clothes need to be to be sold, the tailoring I can’t do that, so I pay someone to sew the clothes to that quality. I design them, cut them and everything but I get a woman I know to sew them for me. Like I style my models hair but I employ a hairdresser to do the cut, I’m a designer but I have knack as I’m into ascetics. I look at someone and I know that they will look good in this or that a certain style, it has always been one of my gifts

Do you see that as how a fashion designer should work?
A lot of fashion designers out there can make clothes right, but when it comes to picking a model picking the accessory’s, bringing the whole look together they have to pay other people to do that for them, this is where my gift lays, that when I get a design in my head and it is not flat I don’t draw my designs they go from head to design I see the whole package the look, the model, the music, the whole vibe that is what comes with my designs the whole atmosphere.

Do you have a clothing label?
I have a label name I’m about to start it is “PRODUCT OF ANGST” (copyright in place) it is registered as a business so I can launch it in Tokyo when I arrive there. Product of Angst came about from my art, I write, music, I’m writing a short novel at the moment and Product of Angst is about things that have happened in my life, the two pieces that were in the Envirofiesta were a reflection of me after something that had happened that had made me really sad and I woke up one day and thought rather than sitting here on this energy and stagnating I thought Id use the way I was feeling and create something and what came out was two products of angst. If I’m fee! ling a certain way then the way I look will change, it all depends on where I’m at and how I’m feeling

It seems everything you do like your art, writing and designs are all very personal?
Yes very personal, like the pieces at the Envirofiesta I may as well have put my soul up there, on the catwalk, not many people realised but the music I picked, the models, everything, it was my goal up there and it was so nerve racking for me. It can be hard for me as I’m a real critique, the type that picks what I do to shreds, and I’m having to learn how to be humble, like when someone says to me “I really like your work”, instead of going bright red and saying whatever, being able to say thank you so much for your input. I like to hear the positive but I like to hear if someone didn’t like my stuff then I can progress.

Do you know local artist Orange Peel, I heard his comments after the parade and he said it took him right back to his days in kilts and jackets he said “I could wear those pieces”, nice feedback!
Within Product of Angst at the moment I’m also doing the look called Chic Freak. A few years ago someone told me Punk was dead and I thought well the image of it might be but the politics behind my clothing and the way I am comes through in my clothes it is an attitude, it is a lifestyle. Like my lifestyle that I have lead whether I was really down or happy it has made me the person I am today and I am very open to others ideas, it is like I view the world like a collage, I pick up things everywhere.

Who would you like to dress and why?
Before she died someone I had always wanted to use in a parade was Valle Myers, she was a Melbourne based artist; she is one of my icons. She left Australia when she was sixteen she went to Spain and hung out with Salvador Dali and others. For so many years I worried about the way I looked and how offensive I was to others she just plugged don’t worry about this you do what you have to do. The woman had tattoos all over her face, she was a wild woman and I would have loved to have! had her in one of my shows

Is Cairns an influence in your development of style?
Cairns has made me break through my own boundaries, like because the people here are a little more conservative compared to some in the Cities. So this has made me develop my tailoring rather than trying to be the most flamboyant the loudest. Cairns has made me look at the broad market people who you could say are Yuppies appreciate my clothes here but in Melbourne there is so much of it around and you just get caught up making things you would rather not make. Cairns is place to hone and develop your skills.

Do you have a regular job?
No I don’t have a regular nine to five job I’m an artist and on returning to Cairns and moving back in with Carmel. I found I wanted to keep going on with my styles and art, but in Melbourne I was ready to give all the fashion world away. I have found Cairns has inspired me and my esteem has been lifted by the feedback and input people here in Cairns have shown me and my designs.

What next in fashion?
My progression is about pleasing yourself with fashion, like if you want to get up in the morning and put on a ball gown and cover yourself in glitter then go for it. I think too many people look into what is trendy in fashion magazines and dress because Gucci says this is in and then you get people walking around in clothes that are not made for there body type and they look uncomfortable in it. My whole thing at the moment is if I want to get up and put a five piece suite on and go to a café then I’m going to do it

So what does fashion mean to you?
That is a hard question, well it is about what I was saying before it is about a lifestyle, what you are doing and how you are feeling if you are depressed you are not going to walk around in a bright hawaiian shirt, its about going inside yourself, fashion is about ascetic and I’m more into style than the term fashion, because “style never goes out of fashion”.

What would be the ultimate for you as a designer?
My ultimate would be setting up somewhere a place where I could design and work as a stylist, a booking agent for models etc not setting up an empire but a place a thing for independent, underground artists. Getting people to write about fashion and I reckon it’s about time people gave Gucci and Prada a run for their money. All my friends and I have great ideas and then I have no cash to get it out there. I look in fashion magazines six months later and my very ideas are up there on the catwalks in Paris, it gets so frustrating

How do you intend to combat that?
By going over to Europe starting little and pushing myself, show people what I can do. I don’t want to be famous or rich but what I would like to do is to make enough money so I am beyond just surviving. I want to be able to pay my bills and treat myself occasionally, I have never been someone who likes the routine of nine to five, it is important not to do a job you don’t enjoy doing, Id rather be happy and poor but doing what I like to do. I don’t want to have the mortgage like my brother, he has to work nine to five for the rest of his living life to pay off his house and I just don’t want to be like that Id rather be poor with a smile on my face and doing what I like to do

Favourite moment so far?
At the Envirofiesta, I put so much of myself into it, I wanted it to look really professional and slick and when they walked out onto the stage it was my vision built over the past two years, it was like giving birth or something. I cried I had tears in my eyes and I felt like well I created it and it was beautiful, I looked at it and felt like if I keep doing this I can get somewhere, it was so inspiring, now I’m dedicated to keep doing it it saved my life

Just to finish off Angelo worst fashion victim?
PARIS HILTON!! “Money doesn’t buy you style”!!!