When Cleonie Quayle’s daughter grew to become hooked on ice and was incarcerated, her grandchildren have been positioned in her care and he or she needed to cease full-time work. “I needed to rethink my life,” she mentioned. “I’ve all the time made issues, and I assumed, ‘Oh, nicely, I’ll make jewelry.’” She began promoting earrings at markets and finally developed her personal enterprise.
On Wednesday night, the Malyangapa Barkindji lady gained a Nationwide Indigenous trend award (Nifa) for her first piece of clothes: a gown constructed from lots of of gold-tipped jacaranda seed pods, impressed by the resilience and restoration journey of her daughter, Chloe – AKA rapper Barkaa.
Quayle was one in all many First Nations artists and designers celebrated as a part of the awards, throughout seven classes together with trend, conventional adornment and textile design. Quayle gained this yr’s wearable artwork award, with a $5,000 money prize.
Accepting the award along with her daughter by her facet, in a ceremony at Darwin’s Deckchair cinema, Quayle was moved to tears – after which laughter. “I’m actually blessed to have such a tremendous mannequin to work with,” she mentioned.
Quayle’s gown, which she estimated took three months of labor – together with gathering seed pods along with her daughter from streets and automobile parks in western Sydney – was initially made for Barkaa’s video clip We Up, an anthem of feminine empowerment. The evening earlier than the Nifa ceremony, the rapper wore a unique model of her mum’s piece – a prime – whereas performing her hit King Brown on the runway of Darwin Aboriginal artwork truthful’s First Nations trend showcase, Nation to Couture. Quayle watched proudly from the entrance row.
Quayle mentioned the jacaranda seed pod was chosen as a logo of her daughter’s journey. Incarcerated in Emu Plains correctional centre whereas she was pregnant, Chloe hoped to be admitted to a centre for moms and infants referred to as Jacaranda Cottage, however was denied; as an alternative, Quayle took care of her grandson whereas her daughter was in custody.
“Chloe determined there after which that she wasn’t going to return to that life. She was going to be along with her infants,” Quayle mentioned in a prerecorded video performed on the ceremony. “In order that’s the symbolicness of the gown: it’s jacaranda for Jacaranda Cottage, and it’s gold, you recognize, to be about her empowerment. The blackness coz we’re blackfellas.”
Chatting with Guardian Australia after the ceremony, Barkaa mentioned: “I’m so proud to name this lady my mom. The rationale why I received clear, and the explanation why I discovered restoration and the explanation why I believed in myself and thought I might create my very own enterprise, was due to my mom.
“She’s gained regulation awards and labored in regulation and household and criminology, but it surely’s stunning to see her come again to what she loves, and one thing that she places her complete coronary heart into and that makes her completely happy.”
The Nifas, run by Indigenous Vogue Initiatives along side the Darwin Aboriginal Artwork Honest, are actually of their sixth yr.
Clair Helen Parker, winner of this yr’s clothier award, mentioned it was a well timed enhance of confidence after greater than a decade of exhausting work.
“Typically you’re doing it for therefore lengthy and also you simply really feel like, ‘Am I going wherever?’ These self-doubt ideas that come by. And so successful this award simply form of gave me that push and mentioned, ‘Oh, you might be doing the appropriate factor.’”
Since graduating from Whitehouse Institute of Design in Sydney in 2016 as its first Aboriginal feminine graduate, the Tiwi lady has created robes for the Logies and Oscars pink carpets, offered collections at Australian fashion week, and in 2024 created her first on-line capsule.
after publication promotion
She did most of it alone, a one-woman operation. “I do all the pieces – I reply to all of the emails, I pack all the pieces, I do all of it,” Parker mentioned. “Typically I nearly felt like giving up, and now I’m going to place my award on the wall in entrance of my stitching [machine] and it’s simply gonna drive my motivation.”
Parker attracts design inspiration from Larrakia nation (Darwin), the place she was raised. “Once we had unhappy instances, we’d all the time exit into the bush and spend time with household, and that will give us quite a bit – I suppose it could assist our psychological well being,” she mentioned. “So I form of wish to emulate that in my designs.”
2025 Nationwide Indigenous trend award winners
Textile design award
Rhonda Sharpe, Yarrenyty Arltere artists
Conventional adornment award
Rena Ngalinggama Guyula, Gapuwiyak tradition and humanities
Wearable artwork award
Cleonie Quayle
Neighborhood collaboration award
Jilamara Arts and Crafts Affiliation x Tiwi artists
Enterprise achievement award
Miimi and Jiinda, Melissa Greenwood
Dressmaker award
Clair Helen Parker
Cecilia Cubillo younger achiever award
Cindy Rostron
Extremely counseled
Djilpin Arts artists x Kate Sale & Fiona Gavino