Not one to be Pigeonholed: Chelsea Hickman
By Hannah Schmidt-Rees
(Look, I understand that there hasn’t been a new post in 20 days, but the world is currently is the middle of a pandemic and I didn’t really feel in the mood to write about clothes. But in order to be productive while in isolation, I thought I’d provide a little escape for everyone, so look forward to a few new articles in the next few weeks.)
Chelsea Hickman isn’t your average fashion entrepreneur. She’s an emerging Melbourne-based designer, photographer and multidisciplinary visual artist originally from Tasmania. Studying a Bachelor’s in Fashion Design at RMIT, followed by a Diploma of Business at Swinburne (and currently enrolled in a Graduate Certificate in Visual Art at the University of Melbourne), Hickman knew from an early point in her study that she wanted to start her own fashion label.
It’s often uncommon for fashion design graduates to establish their own fashion label, opting rather for an entry level position designing ready-to-wear collections for already established fashion brands. It’s also typical for Tertiary Education Institutions offering fashion design courses to not even recommend starting your own business in the first place. But for Hickman, it seemed that she didn’t really have a choice. For starters, her portfolio was deemed ‘too creative’ or ‘not refined enough’ for the average ready-to-wear fashion brand, who’s positions often left no room for individual creativity. In addition, Hickman’s own personal views of the fashion industries contribution to unsustainability and unethical practices led her to choose a different path, avoiding the well-worn road that “subscribes to mass production for mass consumption.” For Hickman, starting her own label is the more rewarding option, which can be as sustainable and ethical as she wants. She’s stubborn about her fashion ethics and sustainability, and dedicated to her vision of “feral, art fashion”.
Her Brand - Fashion Chelsea
Fashion Chelsea initially began in 2017 as an online portfolio on Instagram for Hickman’s creative work. It gave Hickman an easily accessible platform where she could engage with similar designer both in Australia and around the world. Over time, this Instagram page organically evolved to become the main platform for Fashion Chelsea, the fashion brand and business. Supported by a personal website, Hickman’s Instagram is linked to her Depop page, where she sells her latest collections. Find it here! Depop is an online platform and app, primarily focused on users selling their own preowned and handmade fashion and accessories. In itself, Depop is an opposing competitor to the mainstream fast fashion consumerist model, the perfect platform for Fashion Chelsea’s brand. The consumer’s using Depop are often those who identify with Hickman’s views on fashion, as well as the visual aesthetic of her garments.
Currently for sale are Hickman’s collection, a set of 15 tops created from secondhand materials and sewn together in a way that references classic tailoring yet chaotic creativity, further adorned by contrast stitching and handpainted by Hickman herself. Each top is priced at $30, a seemingly low price for the amount of work that goes into creating each piece. The reason for this? Hickman’s experimentations with the relationship between fashion and financial accessibility, disrupting the ingrained system of classism in the fashion industry. Hickman loves the idea of the punk way of life; “wearing whatever or taking a crappy item and making it your own by DIYing it.” This current Depop collection is Hickman’s experiment on how cheap designer fashion can be.
An Anti-Business, Business
At its core, Fashion Chelsea is an anti-business, business. Deciding not to conform to the orthodox standards set by the fashion industry, Fashion Chelsea utilises old garments, found waste and salvaged fabrics to create functional pieces and wearable art.
To generate customer awareness and better connect with her customers, Hickman uses installations and performances. From the very start of Fashion Chelsea, the business’s foundation stands upon events rather than selling physical pieces. Hickman’s first runway show, Opulence in 2017 to her latest, ‘Brunch’ for ‘Situations Vacant’ in 2019, sprouted from collaborations with similar Melbourne-based fashion brands, which frankly started from chance encounters. Hickman often collaborates with Hayley Van Ree, designer for the label Filfy Rish, for her fashion runways who shares her unique outlook on fashion and weird fashion runways. Her latest show, ‘Brunch’ was part of ‘Situations Vacant’ a showcase of small independent designers for VAMFF. Combining Victorian tailoring and silhouettes with second-hand materials and unorganised, modern stitching, Hickman’s personal views on fashion are both aesthetically and subjectively showcased, and through her audience, garnering a group of followers and potential customers, through the idea of fashion as a sustainable artform.
As a brand, Fashion Chelsea isn’t one to be pigeonholed. Hickman herself describes it as ‘scrappy, punk, feral, art and experimental’. Hickman’s work as a multidisciplinary artist influences her visual inspiration and she tries to create pieces that are sustainable and conceptual, regardless of their saleability. Common veins within Hickman’s work are referential of her childhood, identity and current values;
Gender neutrality – Hickman herself doesn’t adhere to the typical gender binary, nor the complete void of gender entirely. Her clothing embraces the whole spectrum of gender in a unique and creative way, reference her own experience and exploration of her own gender identity.
Social enterprise – A business that intends to better the community; equal pay and profits put back into the community is an aspiration for Hickman, as she puts it; “No one loses!”
90s suburban Australia – Growing up in the deep south of Tasmania, Hickman felt distant from the world of fashion, and simply the world in general, more than just geographically speaking. Hickman’s main access to fashion design were the small selection of magazines at her local newsagent, and through her adoration of her older brothers who she thought were the “most stylish, coolest people ever”. Her childhood wardrobe was full of hand-me-downs, contrasting from the excessive glamour of the fashion magazines. The contradiction between these two experiences of fashion serves a source of inspiration for Hickman as a fashion designer.
““Someone recently described my work as ‘goth pop’ so that’s fun, I like that.””
Fashion Chelsea doesn’t run by a set schedule. Hickman wants to disrupt and (no pun intended) ‘redesign’ how people approach fashion consumption, aspiring to release work in a way that is both manageable for her and atypical when compared to the existing fashion schedule of three to four collections a year.
Fashion Chelsea is a one-man band, the product development and dissemination solely run by Hickman herself. With her inspirations and creative work constantly changing, financially committing to Fashion Chelsea and establishing it as a brand is one of her main challenges. In addition, solely financially supporting an entire fashion brand is no easy feat. The realistic benefit of using secondhand fabrics is to lower overhead costs (as opposed to new fabrics), however Hickman’s still utilises other sources of income to support her business, allowing for the creative freedom that she frequently utilises. Hickman works as a Fashion Facilitator at Yarra Youth Centre, teaching young students about designing and creating fashion, creates commissioned pieces (like for Australian musician Anna Kat) and often takes on odd jobs – like assisting production for the MKA Theatre for the Adelaide Fringe Festival. For Hickman, the unstability of this lifestyle is challenging when supporting a new business, (and is still something she is getting used to), but in turn the flexibility is rewarding.
What’s Next?
Hickman is still on a path of constant experimentation, with focus on social enterprise and creative freedom. She expects her work to become an urgent address of the climate emergency, a future that is constantly on her mind. Turning her focus to create a new collection featuring fabrics that are fire retardant, waterproof, UVA and UVB protective, she is exploring ways on how to be comfortable, safe and fashionable on a post-extinction earth. Who knows, we might even see a Fashion Chelsea branded gas mask in the future.
In terms of Fashion Chelsea as a business, Hickman sees success in the brand’s future growth. Expanding to sourcing stockists, having her own showroom and employing others, even becoming entirely eco-friendly are all on Hickman’s to-do list. Fashion Chelsea is still in its start-up phase, and it’s clear that Hickman is making the most of this phase by experimenting as much as she can. But don’t get her wrong, Hickman already sees success in her entrepreneurial career. Invited to speak on a panel at Melbourne’s MPavilion about fashion sustainability, her work in starting a conversation about fashion’s role within the climate emergency is already success in her eyes. Take this article as an example, I personally attended Fashion Chelsea’s fashion show in 2019, and here I am discussing her work and how she takes on the fashion industry’s relationship with unsustainability and unethical practices.
Like I said before, Fashion Chelsea is an anti-business, business.
Every aspect of her aspect is innovative, often credited by Hickman as simply ‘experimentation’, but in reality are genius entrepreneurial business moves that position Fashion Chelsea towards the path of success. From using Instagram as her primary source of business/awareness, to solely selling her items on Depop rather than her own e-store, and even taking such focus on the issues of consumerism, unsustainability and unethicality, attracts the type of customer that will whole-heartedly support Fashion Chelsea and Hickman as a designer.
