Something old, something new: the evolution of Gary Bigeni

If you happened to catch his show at this year’s Afterpay Australian Fashion Week (AAFW) — the 10th of his career — you would have seen this evolution in action.

Gone are the minimalist, drape-focused, ready-to-wear women’s garments that were once the Gary Bigeni trademark. In their place are bright, hand-painted, made-to-order pieces that sit at the intersection of fashion and wearable art.

“Over the last couple of years, I’ve really started projecting my personal style into my collection,” says Bigeni, a tutor in the UTS Fashion and Textiles program.

“Every time I produced something that involved colour or print, it really resonated with me as a person and a designer.”

For Bigeni, this shift came about during a long period of illness and the subsequent COVID-19 pandemic that threatened to sink his label entirely. Rather than panicking, he used the enforced downtime as an opportunity to think about where his label was headed.

“I’d been doing a few collections a year, so keeping to a schedule in terms of seasonal production,” says Bigeni, who was previously stocked in Japan, the US and the UK.

“But I was one person doing it all myself.”

Ready for change 

He realised he was ready for a change — for less pressure, fewer schedules, and to narrow the scope of his creative work. He wanted to shift towards more sustainable production practices and away from the industry’s insistence on designing for the young, the thin, the able-bodied.

And he wanted to do it in a style that was quintessentially his.

“I wanted to work out ways that I could still be creative in terms of being an artist but without overproducing,” he says.

I also really wanted to focus my new work on things that mean a lot to me, and that’s definitely diversity and gender-neutral clothing. I know there’s an audience out there for my product, and I just want to talk to them.

At this year’s AAFW, Bigeni talked to that audience on a grand scale, sending models from a variety of life’s intersections — old and young, queer and straight, fat and thin — down the runway wearing his bold, bright, gender-neutral and entirely one-of-a-kind designs.

This new work is showcased on Instagram and solely available via his online store. Today, if you want to wear a Gary Bigeni, you’ll need to come through the (virtual) Gary Bigeni front door.

It’s a big move for a small label, but it’s not the first time Bigeni has changed direction, and it’s unlikely to be the last. Over 20 years, he’s had to pivot and adapt to the preferences of an ever-changing global fashion industry, as well as to the impacts of external forces, like the digital revolution, that have changed the way designers work.

Mentoring the next generation

But for Bigeni, transformation isn’t something to fear. In fact, he says, the ability to change with the times has been key to his longevity in a remarkably fickle sector. It’s what led him to teaching at UTS, where he pours his years of experience into shaping the next generation of Australian fashion designers, and — now — into a third career as a social worker who delivers fashion and textiles programs for kids.

“This work lets me broaden my spectrum of not just being a designer but also creating programs that can inspire others as well,” he says.

Rather than taking him away from his creative practice, these shifts to his life outside the studio have added a richness to the work he produces within it.

“It’s about evolving in the right way for you and not worrying about what everyone else is doing,” he says.

“Allowing myself to grow and have my ups and downs, that’s part of the journey.”