Liandra’s First Solo Show At Australian Fashion Week Is An Ode To The “Sweetness Of Life”

Since launching in 2018, Liandra (formerly Liandra Swim) has seamlessly woven storytelling into its bold and bright resort collections. “I always think of the brand [as being] the best parts of my personality,” Liandra Gaykamangu, Liandra’s creative director and founder and Yolngu woman from East Arnhem Land, tells Refinery29 Australia. 

“My family is from a small island here in East Arnhem Land," she says. "My stepdad was a surfer, so that was a really big part of how I grew up… on the beaches and camping up and down the coast — I don't think I could ever remember a time when we went on a holiday where there wasn't a beach, unless it was to the snow."

Gaykamangu’s upbringing and the way in which she engaged with the ocean has inspired everything from the garments she creates (until recently, Liandra was a solely swimwear label) to the brand’s dedication to social impact and sustainable production practices. “We look at sustainability as a brand in a very holistic sense, where we're looking at economic empowerment, community impacts, and then on a broader social level as well,” she says.

Catching up with Refinery29 Australia ahead of Australian Fashion Week, Gaykamangu insists that everyone has a responsibility when it comes to sustainability. She recounts a conversation she had with her sister-in-law recently, who explained that the environment and the trees can’t talk, so it’s our role to advocate and talk on their behalf. “It just really resonated with me and was a really nice, organic reminder of [what] sustainability [is],” she says. 

This is a responsibility that Gaykamangu takes seriously, and in fact, she says she doesn’t know of a single First Nations-owned fashion brand that doesn’t partake in some form of social impact in one way or another. “I think First Nations designers and creatives take [that responsibility] into their practice. It's just a naturally ingrained part of it,” she says. “Everybody is trying to create a platform to do more good than just create a job or create money and wealth for themselves.”

In practical terms for Liandra, that means the label’s luxury swimwear fabrics are made from regenerated plastics and recycled elastane, and even the bag each piece is delivered in is made from cassava root starch, which is biodegradable within three to six months. Every aspect of the label is guided by its desire to “do better and be better”. 

“When I talk about sustainability, it is caring about Country, culture, and community,” she says. “Because, for me, sustainability is sustaining all of those for our longevity and health as a diverse nation.”

For the sustainable label’s solo debut show at AFW 2024, Liandra expands out of the bounds of swimwear (though swim is still a core pillar of the label), showing more ready-to-wear pieces. The show is a graduation of sorts, because while this may be the label’s first standalone show at Fashion Week, Liandra was a Next Gen winner in 2023 and has previously shown as part of the Indigenous Fashion Projects Runway. 

Its presentation at AFW 2024 marks a big moment for the label — one that Gaykamangu says feels like a natural next step for Liandra. She explains that Liandra acts as a string between “two very different worlds”, and it’s her hope that the label be a “positive and open and safe [way] for people to engage with Indigenous Australia”. The prints are a contemporary take on her culture, and as such, every decision made about the brand is intentional, from the colour palettes to the hand-drawn patterns, to the storytelling that underpins each collection’s theme — all adding layers of texture and depth. 

“That was always the goal of the brand, to be celebrated as an iconic Australian brand that is dripping in thousands of years of culture,” she says. “Yes, we are a very proudly First Nations brand. However, we're also proudly an Australian designer, and that's the legacy piece — I don't want to be ‘just’ anything. I want to be on the same pillar as Zimmerman and Bec and Bridge and Bianca Spender — brands that have been at the forefront of the Australian [fashion] industry.” 

“That's that fine line of balancing between being authentic to who we are and what we care about in a way that [makes it clear] we are for everyone, and we want to celebrate everyone, but we do it in our own way.”

Gaykamangu explains that this balancing act has also been reflected through the evolution of the brand, which she stresses is a part of her, but isn’t just for her. That said, she does admit her personal life is, at times, reflected in the colour palettes and patterns of her designs. She explains that after the passing of her father a few years ago, she noticed upon reflection that her recent collections often featured a more muted colour palette. “Now, coming out of that, we're kind of going back to a more fun and bright colour palette,” she says, adding that it’s been an interesting learning curve for her. 

With Liandra’s pre-AFW collection, Fruits of the Sea, which was fronted by Jesinta Franklin, she made the decision to lean on personal experiences that other people may find relatable as well. “The collection was an ode to the seafood that we collect in Arnhem Land and how we've engaged with shellfish in particular, both as a staple of our diet, but also as a staple of human culture and lifestyle,” Gaykamangu explains, adding that it was personal and also contextual to a region. 

“I was so grateful to be able to partner with the Marine Stewardship Council and the Aqua Stewardship Council, so we were able to utilise the collection and the platform that we had to broaden and grow a deeper understanding of the ocean health, and of sustainable seafood farming here in Australia.” She explains that it was particularly important that the collection enabled her to "talk a lot more about the unfortunate plastic problem that's washing up on international tides and East Arnhem Land on some of our most remote parts of the country".

This delicate balance between the personal and also outward appeal is reflected in Liandra’s collection for AFW 2024, titled Essence. The collection is a departure from the Liandra we’re accustomed to. With the label’s move into ready-to-wear, we see garments that don’t feature an allover print, as well as more textures and layering. “I loved one fabric so much, and I couldn't get it in a print,” Gaykamangu explains. “[So], I was like, ‘fine, let's do it in black, and I'll trim it with the print’.” 

Gaykamangu also explains that while the prints and silhouettes may be different to what we’ve come to expect from Liandra, they’re still undeniably personal. “The prints are really inspired by my clan group; for us, the native honeybee and the sugar bag are incredibly important culturally,” Gaykamangu says, adding that these are incorporated in an extremely contemporary way.

“The show is going through that arc of chaos and busyness of what we often identify with the hive.” With this metaphor, she draws a line directly to the workplace, which reflects the shift in the garments. Where the brand was once only known for swimwear, it is now moving into workwear and the ready-to-wear category more broadly. 

In the show at AFW, this frenetic energy is tempered by the “sweetness of life”, as Gaykamangu puts it, or the honeybee and sugar bag references in the prints and also in the soundtrack. The show begun with a songline about guku (the native honeybee) and is sung in the Yolngu language by three of Gaykamangu's bapa (her dad's brothers).

“That is the 'essence', right? From the minute we wake up to the minute we close our eyes, there is that arc of chaos and awakening, and then calming and then reflection and it doesn't necessarily happen daily for everybody, but there is that ability to do that throughout life.”