Having presented his sophomore collection at Afterpay Australian Fashion Week earlier this year in May, Higgins has emerged as a luminous force in the Australian fashion industry. His work has received numerous accolades and has been warmly embraced within the art and fashion crowd, with international cool girls Hunter Schafer and Grimes being among his early supporters.
Growing up in Otford, a small coastal town about an hour’s drive from Sydney, Higgins spent his teenage years on sites like Tumblr, where he wrote poetry and fell in love with art, music and fashion. The Internet was where it all began; it was the place where Higgins first discovered the liberating power of creativity and imagination. Digital culture continues to influence his work today. Higgins’ signature piece–a gradient-print stretch top containing excerpts from his old poems–is an ode to being young and alive in the digital age. These pieces beautifully bridge the gap between the past, the present and the future, weaving each one of these realities into a magical garment that reveals, with startling intimacy, its creator’s innermost thoughts, hopes and dreams. For Higgins, to be human is to wear your heart on your sleeve. His creations invite us to join him in this world of radical vulnerability. It seems like a nice place to be. I, for one, am diving straight in.