Newcastle Fashion Week Designer Spotlight: Lady Amalthia
As Newcastle Fashion Week draws near, the featured designers are getting ready doing final stitches on their designs to strut down the catwalk. Luckily, some have taken the time out to catch up with us at Urban Insider like Lady Amalthia’s Michelle Gray.
What are your inspirations for your designs? For example, other designers? Vintage clothes? Street style?
I am a home grown Novocastrian with a mother and grandmother who love antiques, markets and never throw anything away, and as such I have grown up with a love and appreciation of all things vintage. Hence Lady Amalthia is inspired by so many things including vintage clothing and fabrics, antique shops, my nana’s wardrobe, musicians like City and colour and Angus and Julia Stone, nature, photography, Daisy Lowe, trees, weeping willows hanging over bubbling creeks, daisies, meadows, old country lanes, long grass, secrets, literature, the smell of old books, sun tinged photographs, polaroids, the seventies, Woodstock, the hippie movement, the “Summer of Love”, the fifties and Frankie Magazine. It’s all about innocence with an edge, I like designing clothes that can be dressed sweet or edgy depending on how you decide to style it.
How would you describe your most recent collection?
My SS 11/12 collection ‘Forget Me Not’ is titled so because of my inspiration from the past, particularly the 1967 ‘Summer of Love’ and use of vintage fabrics. With this collection you can picture yourself running free away to the country, kicking through long grass, stepping on stones across a river and laying down in meadows full of wildflowers. It’s adventurous, secretive and free spirited. I love mixing and matching contrasting fabrics to create a whole new look that can be both innocent and sweet or funky and a bit grunge. For example team with ballet flats and pearls and your picture perfect, or with combat boots and black nail polish for an edge. Play with it and create your own unique style.
What does being involved in NFW mean for you as a designer?
I am very excited and honoured to be selected to exhibit in Newcastle Fashion Week. As a 20 year old student undertaking a Diploma of Applied Fashion Design and Technology and Newcastle TAFE (which I will complete this year) NFW is a great platform for me to launch what will hopefully be a long and successful career in the fashion industry. My dream is to create and run a successful label, and I am looking forward to taking my first big step at NFW.
Is Newcastle’s fashion different from other places? If so, why?
Newcastle has such a wide variety of fashion and my favourite thing about Novocastrians is that they wear what they want with their head held high. There are no limits anymore, it’s freedom in fashion and I love that. Walking down any street in Newcastle you can see the Fashion-forward with quirky pieces that make you ask yourself ‘WOW! I wonder where she/he got that?!’. There’s also the chic and sophisticated business types and then there’s people that couldn’t care less about the clothes on their back. The clothes we wear are an expression of ourselves and I don’t think anyone has the right to judge that. If you don’t like it, then don’t you wear it.
Where do you want to see the brand in 5 years?
As a new designer, I am still deciding about what direction to take my brand, Lady Amalthia. There are many possibilities for me to evaluate. However, I hope that in five years time I have clothing stocked in boutiques throughout Australia, and that I can financially support myself through my label. I believe you have to dream big if you ever hope to get anywhere! Whenever I freak myself out with thoughts of the future I remember this quote: “I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship” –Louisa May Alcott.
What words of wisdom would you give aspiring designers?
My words of wisdom to aspiring designers (including myself) are to be brave enough to chase your dreams because life isn’t worth living half hearted, you’ve got to do what you love. Don’t worry if people try rain on your parade, just carry an umbrella.
Check out Lady Amalthia on Facebook and Tumblr.
Read about another label, The Last Romantic, here.
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