Young designer Daniella Wakim is interning her way through the fashion

ranks while creating and pulling together her own label, D’Ella.

Fashion week is the height of Australian Fashion but creator of fashion label Saint Augustine Academy, Alvin Manalo says, “be ready for hard work, be ready to be poor for a

very long time. It’s nowhere near as glamorous as people think it is.”

Camera shy Daniella is all about her clothes, already having produced one collection out of the family

home.

Quick to smile, Daniella is happy to take is through the collection she’s put together . Called ‘Black Vendetta”, the collection aims to “personalise and create individuality, it

takes the colour black to a whole new level.”

Three models wearing clothes from Daniella’s Black Vendetta collection, shot at the TAFE end of year showcase.

A designers mood board is often a look into themselves, their design values and their style. Daniella’s mood board is a jumble of quotes, dress designs, fabric swatches and images of clothing from designers she loves. She admits that “It took a while to put together. It started off with ‘Fashion Starts Here’, I cut up a bag from a fashion show

that I got. I got a lot of Sass and Bide pictures. And then I got fabric swatches. And then my drawings, and then I kept on adding, and adding.”

Daniella working on the “Bullet Shorts” from the Black Vendetta collection, saying with a laugh that she double-checked the bullets were unloaded before she started

using them.

Daniella’s friends are often the models chosen to wear her

clothes, with one friend showing off the tailoring on this gold dress and cream

leather jacket.

Most of the pieces that Daniella makes are hand sewn, which can typically take hours to complete.

She credits being taught to pattern make as part of her TAFE course for

grooming her to be “able to construct” in terms of the design

behind each piece of clothing.