And we're off. Australian Fashion Week begins today with 10 favourite, Marina Afonina's Albus Lumen in an act of rebellion. We spoke to the designer about what inspired her upcycled collection below:

How does it feel to be opening Australian Fashion Week?

It feels very exciting and liberating for sure. And I'm just like ready. I think it’s such a perfect timing for this collection because there's such a big message behind it, just like also just bigger than just a normal collection I would say.

Tell us what the message us and why it resonates with you personally so much.

When we decided last year to do Fashion Week again, I'm thought, what do we want to do? It reflects where the world is, where I'm at, and what's happening in the fashion industry. it’s lots of changes, lots of people closing down, lots going on. I think for those kind of hard times you strive for the best and you come up with the best ideas, but you just feel like you need to do better. You need to come out of it in a better way. So the whole entire collection is archive pieces, it's all upcycled. It's all reused. Every single piece in the collection, it's going to be redone in a different way. We dyed it differently. We deconstructed it. We added some more elements to it. We  did lots of different washes. It's got lots of new textures. It's all very disheveled but still has that element. It’s still Albus and it still has the it still has that identity that we always have. It still has the sense of elegance but it's very rebellious. It has more youth into it. It feels like when you have the end of the world and the new generation comes along, it’s the survival mode. It has a bit of like 90s grunge to it.

Are you inspired by say the protests that are going on or what kind of element of the strife in the world? Is there one particular thing?

Everything. The climate change, the business. Much of fashion has closed down. It’s all people trying to find a balance because it's all gone too fast. It’s all the war in the world and everything obviously affects me as a person. I don't know about the rest, you know. I feel like why do I need to do another collection where it just doesn't make sense. I want to do something completely different. So bring all my archive pieces that I love and then completely reconstruct it and change. Make it more upcycled but it's all going into production. Lots of pieces will be just either sold as they are or only five pieces will be made. There will definitely be commercial pieces in there as well, but a lot of things will be more unique and more different and more unusual from what we usually do.

How long has it been?

So it's nine years this year so next year it will be 10 years.

What's been the hardest moment on your journey, this nine year journey so far?

Running the business, I feel. I feel like for nine years, I realised I'm more of a creative person than a business person. A lot of decisions you make are based on your feelings rather than a business mind. That’s the hardest for me, for sure. I've got a commerce degree. I'm more of a creative person. That's why a lot of decisions I made in the past, perhaps were wrong because it's just based on my creative mind. That's why I think every business needs to have a business person. That's where I think it can thrive and it can actually be successful because you can't do both.

And then what's been the best moment?

Now it's probably the best moment now. I just want to do what I want to do. No one tells me what to do. The company is very small. I can create whatever I like. And, you know, whatever happens, happens. But at least I'm not going to regret doing things that I don't love doing, so it's purely for love and just passion. That's how I feel, and it's definitely liberating. Opening Fashion Week, that makes it even more liberating.

Where do you hope you might be in the next nine years?

Hopefully I'll be doing the same I'm doing now, but in a more successful way. Maybe I'll do more things, maybe I’ll grow differently. I love designing, doing fashion. So hopefully somewhere in Paris, that’d be the dream. Have a proper store in Sydney and maybe somewhere overseas.

There will be young designers reading this, do you have any advice? If there’s somebody in their final year at college, and it's an incredibly tough marketplace, as you said, what would your advice be to them?

If they were thinking of starting their own label, go super slow, and definitely only do what you love and what you believe in. Don't listen to anyone, and stick to your own vision. Don't go elsewhere, just stick to your guns, and have a really strong identity, and if you work hard, that's it. Don’t stop. Believe in yourself. It's never easy.

How important is your core team around you? Is it important that a young designer builds people around them from the beginning?

Definitely have a good support system next to you. But you can definitely start on your own and then take slow steps. Take your time. Try different things and you can ask for advice from people that you know you can trust and you know that they know what they're doing.

albuslumen.com