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Stilettos and trackie pants? No such thing as a fashion faux pas in fashionanarchy’s book. Gemma Seymour explores the fashion with no rules.

No matter what their clothing style, if you go through anyone’s wardrobe you’re bound to find a t- shirt, right? You wouldn’t in Brandy’s. The closest thing to a t-shirt would be a black singlet top, but even then it would probably be worn under one of her corsets - an item of clothing she wears everyday- no matter what.

Brandy, 32, is the force behind brandy l’étrange (formerly Dark Decadence) and her designs have flourished in the gothic and fetish scenes.  There’s a chance that brandy l’étrange could go international – she has been invited to showcase her designs in this year’s Singapore Fashion Week coming up in November but at the moment, a lack of funding is holding her back. 

It is in her often candle-lit studio space in her Newtown home where Brandy’s creations take form.  There are fairy lights everywhere, and on one of the walls hangs a huge Balinese mirror in front of which she practices her burlesque dance routines and does fittings for clients. There are two or three dress dummies, a couple of guitars lying around and a big board which Brandy painted with blackboard paint and tiled around the outside where she writes inspirational sayings from time to time. 

Also part of the space is Pinky.  A salt and pepper coloured terrier staffy cross, Pinky was given to Brandy by her brother after he was saved from being put down.  These days, he sits by Brandy’s feet as she sews.

Image: Brandy

Brandy wears her designs in her burlesque shows at the Hellfire Club and has appeared as a featured extra wearing her own outfits in the films Moulin Rouge, Babe: Pig in the City, The Matrix and Garage Days. For Brandy to wear anything other than what she does would be unnatural: “I need to wear interesting, provocative things; it just fulfills me.  If I don’t, I feel very strange.” 

This need is not something that stems back to a rebellious childhood or influences from a Gothic contingent in her teenage years. Growing up in Cairns, North Queensland, Brandy says the only thing to influence her was herself and maybe a bit of Countdown. 

Brandy, although hesitant to label herself, would identify as Gothic. “I grew up in Cairns and there wasn’t any Goths in Cairns.  I didn’t even know what that meant…I just always was creative with my clothing and was always wearing strange and wild, and in some cases, revolting things together…It’s just in me,” she says.

 “I’ve always kind of classified myself as Gothic just because it seems to fit me to death and people do have this innate need to classify anybody and if they can’t, then people don’t like that because they like to put people into boxes.”

From Brandy’s experience, it can be hard for those who dress in Gothic fashion.  The attention from people in the street can sometimes turn into ridicule – attention that you wouldn’t put up with unless you absolutely couldn’t be any other way, Brandy says. 

 “I mean who would dress in that kind of way knowing that they’re going to be ridiculed and shunned by society unless they felt an absolute need to? And I’m not talking about teenagers who get off on being different, I’m talking about grown adults who have normal jobs; nurses, IT specialists, retail workers.”

The ridicule Brandy speaks of isn’t imagined: she’s been spat on, had cans and bottles thrown at her, and has had people yelling out names to her – although never in her beloved Newtown.

Brandy’s designs appeared in Fashionanarchy, an event of this year’s Australian Victims of Fashion Week which was held in Newtown.  The alternative fashion festival celebrated local creators and knew how to break the rules.  The event did away with the catwalk altogether; the designs were performed.

Cellist Clare Brassil, who has performed regularly with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Opera Australia, is the artistic director of Australian Victims of Fashion Week.  She said of the night “It’s about acceptance and it’s about allowing people to make big fashion errors.”

On the night, Clare performed with the Lingerie String Quartet who have been performing together for about four years.  Dressed in fetish wear by Dark Decadence (now brandy l’étrange), the LSQ married the “incongruous concepts” of a conservative art form with the alternative fashion of fetish.

Clare does not let the rules of mainstream fashion interfere with her wardrobe.  She wears what she wants to wear where and how she wants to wear it. 

“I like to promote the idea of doing things in clothes that you wouldn’t do.  I like to challenge the idea of putting on jogging gear every time you want to go for a jog.  You should just go for a jog in whatever you’re wearing, you know? Go for a jog in your jeans,” she says.

Clare also challenges fashion bullying.  “If someone says ‘Well long shorts are in this year’ I think that’s ridiculous, you know? What’s wrong with short shorts?  So I guess what I’m challenging is the idea that things can be in or out.  I think people should wear whatever they want really.”

This philosophy would naturally add variety to your wardrobe.  When shopping, Clare grabs whatever she thinks looks good.  Terry-toweling jumpsuits are something that Clare is “quite in to”. 

“There’s no restrictions, I don’t try to go for anything that’s particularly one way or another,” she says.  “I don’t mind if something’s quite conservative and classic, and I don’t mind if something’s completely outrageous and I don’t mind wearing something in a way that it wouldn’t usually be worn.  Open mind.”

Also exhibited at Fashionanarchy were designs from Gallery Serpentine.  The MC for the evening, Craig Donarski (aka Master Tom) from the Hellfire Club, wore a Gallery Serpentine outfit: a corset embellished with metal studs, a leather jacket, and bum-less leather pants with multi-faceted stainless steel ornamentation at the crotch.  Actress, Kate Smith, and pianist, Andrew Basile, also in Gallery Serpentine, wore Victorian ensembles for their colonial sing-song.

Stephanie Calkin is the manager of the Enmore Gallery Serpentine store and also organises Newtown’s Under the Blue Moon festival.  She describes her own style as casual Gothic with a bit of a cyber Japanese Goth focus, which uses some traditional Japanese or Chinese lines. 

Both the store, and the desire to create a specific look for the day, influences what Stephanie wears.  “So often it’s like well, what’s the mood? Do I want to be really quirky today?” she says. 

“So it’s not really about fashion as such, it’s about what I’m feeling or what I want to express or what colour I want to wear.”

If you’re tiring of adhering to the boundaries of mainstream fashion, adopting the philosophies of the fashionanarchist may be truly liberating.  But before you begin wearing whichever colours you feel like, or putting on a 16th century-inspired corset to take the dog for a walk, or even donning stilettos with your trackies, there is one rule you have to abide by: there are no rules.