Excerpt from Issue 30 (September 2020) of Beautiful Bizarre Magazine // Bird Skin believes that slow fashion is not a movement or a fad. It’s about turning back the clock to a time when we worked with nature rather than against it. Designers Ali and Luke feel that creating meticulously crafted artwear should celebrate people, the environment, and unexpected moments of beauty. They are passionate about sustainability, craftsmanship, and innovation. As is evident in their many offbeat pieces, the creative duo is fond of artful experimentation using unique textiles, patterns, and ornamentation. Bird Skin is a proud past recipient of the Australian Fashion Awards ‘Designer of the Year’. Perhaps their biggest achievement to date was placing 2nd in the 250th-anniversary edition of the prestigious, international Hand & Lock embroidery competition.
Trendy duds that are seemingly cobbled together with duct tape and a prayer run rampant in big box stores. While it’s admittedly fun to follow trends, there comes a time in life when we reevaluate the image that we project into the world. Making a conscious effort to step away from looks that are dictated by phantom fashionista entities? Eager to make a style statement that is far more reflective of your personal essence? Interested in supporting a business that prioritizes originality just as much as artisanship and green initiatives? The visually exhilarating world of Bird Skin specifically caters to outside-of-the-box spirits who proudly wear their wholly original, cause-driven hearts on their sleeves.
This very moment, don’t you feel as though you’re triple somersaulting into the wearable equivalent of a kaleidoscopic joy ride? Bird Skin’s clothing and accessories – crafted with a hat tip to sensory stimulation, spontaneity, and even mindfulness – celebrate the pulse of an ebullient life. Everything about the Australian design team’s credo serves as an anti-venom to the notion that one should merely just ‘shut up and wear beige’. The riot of colors, prints, and textures that Ali and Luke integrate into their eclectic wearable art are reflective of open-mindedness – not just for diverse cultures and aesthetics – but also for capricious style adventures that elevate one’s vibration.
The Australian boho couture label serves up art-forward style using vintage textiles as the perennially frolicsome foundation of their creative vision. Mixing and matching, delightfully clashing – happily, it’s all fair game. They take their repurposed fabrics to the next level with a spirited application of hand embroidery and bedazzling. Bird Skin’s ornamental offerings are the very embodiment of wearable creativity without any of the cookie-cutter clonesville consequences. When you don their thoughtfully crafted, history-rich garments and baubles – all of which are imbued with contemporary charisma – you’ll enter a quixotic new style frontier that will set your heart and spirit aflutter.
