Bridget Matison

When honours student Bridget Matison sent her final collection down the runway at the 2023 UTS Design Honours Fashion Showcase, she did so in front of some of the Australian fashion industry’s biggest names.

Vogue Australia, Harper’s Bazaar, and Camilla and Marc were just some of the brands represented at the event, which exhibits the final collections of students in the Bachelor of Design in Fashion and Textiles.  

“A number of prominent people in the industry were in the front row posting about our work,” she says.  

For Bridget, the night was an opportunity to finally introduce the world to the work she’d been making over the last 12 months — six looks and 20 individual pieces that had been conceptualised, designed and brought to life with her own two hands.  

Called Real Fish, the work maps Bridget’s story as a trans woman and seeks to reclaim the often-harmful archetypes of trans women that appear in mainstream media.  

“Those stereotypes are often very icky and weird, so through my work I’m taking that power back,” she says.    

As such, the six looks that comprise the work are about states of change — “so everything is about the in between — maybe between two different developing bodies or two different states of movement,” she says. The collection was supported by a textile sponsorship with luxury brand Liberty London.  

If the idea was distinctive, the aesthetic is too — Bridget’s work is a riot of textiles and technique, drawing on everything from traditional patternmaking, screen-printing and collage to the creation and use of novel bioplastics. 

This diversity reflects the wide-ranging nature of the Fashion and Textiles program, in which students can choose their own adventure of skills development and application and bring it to life in the university’s uniquely hands-on environment.   

“The facilities at UTS are so fantastic. You have these dedicated spaces for particular techniques — you’re allowed to do whatever you want, and I think I tried it all,” she says.  

It was very open and self-directed, and I’m grateful for that because it led to a lot of experimentation that let me find my own style very organically.  

Students also receive extensive guidance from a passionate and talented teaching team that includes well-known Australian designers like Alix Higgins and Gary Bigeni, as well as from industry experts whose feedback helps them refine their practice over time.  

“For example, we had the designers from Romance was Born come in and give a guest lecture, and they also came and judged an assessment for us and gave us feedback on our work,” Bridget says.  

“It’s very cool getting the perspectives of people who have been so prominent in the fashion industry for so long.”  

The opportunity to rub shoulders with leading brands was a high point of the degree, but so too was being part of a community of Australian fashion’s up-and-comers.  

Bridget was one of 10 students in this year’s fashion honours program; over 12 months, they became each other’s confidantes, collaborators and cheerleaders as they worked side by side on their collections.  

“There was such a sense of community among us and such a connection,” Bridget says.  

“We were able to bounce ideas off each other and it almost felt collaborative — some of the ideas in my collection were inspired by something another student has said, or feedback that I’ve been given by my friends and my peers. 

“Being in the same space as all these creatives so often and for so long, I think that’s had a huge impact on my design experience.”