Isabelle Hellyer looks as if Lana Del Rey went in and out of a pencil sharpener—still gorgeous, but more angular. She has a pert nose, clear, pale skin, and the word “Elegance” tattooed in a spiky cursive on her neck. Someone once described her to me as the most ambitious person they’d ever met, and the most prescient trend forecaster. Hellyer started the fashion label “all is a gentle spring” in Australia in 2018, when she wanted to find a corset that didn’t look like it came straight from a budget Renaissance Faire shop. Over the next few years, iterations of the corset expanded into a broader project: a label centred on reviving historic techniques and styles for the twenty-first century. Two-hundred-year-old necklines and near-defunct pleat styles reappear in gentle spring garments. Now, the label is stocked in New York’s most avant-garde concept store, Café Forgot, worn on-stage by the princess of alt-pop Caroline Polachek and her bandmates, and desired by medievally-inclined women worldwide. People who never knew they wanted to dress like a sexy eighteenth-century office worker can do so—for a price.
Born in the US in 1996 (American mum; Australian dad), Hellyer and her family moved to Canberra when she was young. After school, she spent time in Melbourne and Sydney before moving to LA, where she still lives. In conversation, she has a light American accent and speaks with careful intelligence. She’s partial to a quip. “There really was a time before the Vivienne Westwood bull market, if you can believe it,” she says, recalling the genesis of the gentle spring corset (archival Vivienne Westwood corsets are now some of the most highly coveted items in the designer secondary market).
Hellyer has always been precocious. In her early twenties, she worked amongst older colleagues as an associate editor of Vice Media’s i-D magazine. But all good things must come to an end—as the millennial broadsheet of note began decomposing, she put fashion journalism behind her, and turned to fashion proper. This would be an exercise in long-game thinking, a real test of her eye and entrepreneurial spirit. A successful fashion label requires an unholy combination of art, business nous, dogged work, and some magic. All would not always be a gentle spring. Sometimes all would be extremely difficult.
Hellyer's label is one of many Australian micro-fashion ventures that are developing devout local followers and growing international fanbases. It just might be that the most interesting cultural activity happening in this country right now, the unhemmed edge of our avant-garde, is in fashion.
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