designer and owner of fme apparel
I got these at a market in LA when I did a massive road trip through Mexico, Cuba and California. I’m a bit of a collector and love colour and beautiful things. When I look at them, I get the feeling of the trip again.
I found this tucked away in a drawer at my dad’s. It’s of my mum and dad and is by a dear friend of my dad’s, Gianni, an Italian painter. He met Gianni and his wife Licia while he was backpacking as a 19-year-old in the ’60s and stayed with them. Dad and Gianni basically fell in love and became lifelong friends. They wrote to each other like pen pals.
I’ve kept swatches of beautifully hand-woven fabrics from India over the years. We worked with a few organisations that ensure fair trade, and the fabrics they produce are just my favourite because they’re all handmade slowly. Just the smell of them is so incredible compared to dyed fabric. My designs usually start here – I find the fabric I love, then I look at what we’ve got in our patterns that could work.
Growing up, my mum has always made clothing and had a small business at home. That’s forever been a day in my life: mum sewing from home. She still sews some garments for FME now.
I bought this from a store in New York called Oroboro. I’m so obsessed with the independent makers they stock that I booked an Airbnb two doors down from them just so I could walk past for a whole week and stare into the window.
This is of my good friend, Rose. We were both 13, in high school and obsessed with photobooth photos.
Photography is a huge part of my life – I shoot all the campaigns for FME. I started in high school, and my mum was also a beautiful photographer and had a darkroom set up at home. My favourite photographer is Malick Sidibé. He was prominent in Africa in the ’60s and photographed a lot of kids going out to the club. His photography captured a moment in time so beautifully. I love how simple but incredibly powerful his work is. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall to watch him do his thing.
I have between 200-300 altogether. I take them on every shoot we do for FME. It’s awesome because they show the whole history of the business from since we started nine years ago.