It couldn’t have been more poetic that Tuesday morning was the first sunny day Sydney had seen in weeks. Outside Carriageworks in the city’s inner suburbs, rays of sun hit the pavement as revellers—garbed largely in colour and print—made their way inside for the morning’s second show; the stand-alone debut runway of Liandra.

Inside Gallery Three there was an undeniable buzz. The white of the room (so crisp the Australian Fashion Week (AFW) volunteers wore shoe covers) was punctuated by several strips of hanging fabric, which bled ombré from white to yellow to orange, and separated the runway from the front row. A sweet birdsong chirped through speakers, a backdrop to the ‘good mornings’ of guests, shouted to each other across the sparse catwalk.

In 2023, Liandra Gaykamangu presented as part of AFW’s Next Gen program, showing a selection of pieces from her brand—then known as Liandra Swim—alongside three other emerging designers. To jump from that to a stand-alone show in a year is an impressive feat—one that clearly wasn’t lost on the editors, influencers and friends of the brand who decorated the front row, chatting amongst themselves. They quietened as the birdsong quelled, replaced by Gaykamangu’s voice welcoming them to the show. As the show’s opening soundtrack—which was sung in Yolngu matha (language) by three of her bapa (dad’s brothers), and tells the story of guku (the Native Honey Bee)—filled the room, and the first model emerged amid those sunset strips of fabric, it was clear we were witnessing the dawn of a new era for Liandra.

Speaking over Zoom three weeks prior, the designer, a proud Gupupuyngu woman, explained that the show had been in planning since last October. For not only her debut show, but her first foray into resortwear, everything had been considered, from cast to music—and it showed.

In this collection, titled Essence, Liandra did a lot of things well—a moment for the exquisite prints, which Gaykamangu designed herself—but one particular skill that struck me was her ability to marry creative with the commercial side of her brand. As much as she talked about her personal connections to the prints and pieces during our conversation, she spoke with equal gusto about the collection’s pragmatic points: the ways the most popular swim pieces from previous seasons had been reinvented, how important it was the pieces were versatile, etcetera. 

Even in its inspiration, something many designers hold as the most intimate part of their process, she says: “I try to keep those metaphoric connections quite broad because I also want people to be able to relate with the collections as well.”

As such, the inspiration behind Essence is two-pronged. At the core of it all sits guku, which Gaykamangu explained is “a very important songline for our clan up here in East Arnhem Land.”

“So I wanted to take elements of that,” she says. “But I do everything in a contemporary sense so I wanted to spin that in a way that you feel the collection and I guess, experience it.”

Accordingly, parts of Essence are intentionally “busy like a bee,” with half the collection in a palette of bright pinks and orange prints, and the other deep blues, greens and turquoise. Despite this, the details were considered, striking a fine balance between interest and wearability. Cream, shell-look buttons, thin ties across the waist and intricate pleating in tops and trousers helped elevate the swim components and marked the brand’s shift into the realm of resortwear.

It also marked the reveal of Liandra’s first eyewear collection, created in partnership with Pared. Set to debut around September, the collaboration slotted seamlessly with the theme of the collection, featuring hand-drawn bee motifs etched into the bottle green, burgundy, pink and orange frames.

Of that broader context, Gaykamangu mused: “I think in 2024 we often ask each other ‘Oh, how are you?’ And we say, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m good’ or ‘Oh, yeah, I’m so busy.’”

“We’re using these baseline phrases and … I wanted to capture that and acknowledge that we are so busy. There is so much coming out as information and noise, and we’re also manoeuvring our way through life so busy—but there’s a sweetness to that, that I wanted to be able to acknowledge.” She added: “It’s definitely [referencing] the ability to be busy, but also enjoy the sweet moments that life does create along the way as well.”

She further reflected, “The pieces are always a little bit like poetry, right? A poem can be read and experienced 1700 different ways depending on how somebody might have shown up to read it in any given moment. And that’s essentially the same translation with the pieces. So they’re often layered with so many different meanings and ways that somebody might understand or experience that.”

This notion of fashion as poetry, as a conversation, is one Gaykamangu said stretches further than Essence.

“The way that I see fashion in general is like having a conversation with the world,” she told me. “Every single time you leave, every single time you get dressed … you are having a dialogue with the world without saying anything at all.”

As a designer, Gaykamangu has become a part of the conversations others are having through their clothing (something she said she loves). At the same time, she is becoming an important part of the conversation in the Australian fashion landscape.

If Next Gen 2023 was Gaykamangu’s graduation, this is her big league debut; the piece of prose that has undeniably her introduction in the pages of contemporary Australian fashion.

Ella Sangster

Ella Sangster is a Digital Writer at ELLE and marie claire Australia. She formerly worked as the Digital Fashion Writer at Harper’s BAZAAR and Esquire Australia, and has also written for Women’s Health Australia and The New York Times.