Novice fashion designer, James Lillis, has chosen clothing manufacturers in Melbourne and Brisbane to make his new range of clothing which features innovative use of digital prints. It was revealed last month that the new label enjoyed a growth of 42% from July to August this year.
The label is called Black Milk, and consists of tube skirts, maillots, tank dresses and leggings. As Lillis has no experience in fashion design, he relies on his flair for using works of art and photographs of pop icons to breathe new life into basic clothing shapes.
Lillis told Gabriel Wilder of the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) that his designs have so far only been promoted using social media sites such as Facebook. Black Milk first caught the attention of the fashion gurus when Lillis designed a tank dress which featured an extreme close-up of the face of actor Steve Buscemi. Since then, Lillis has let his imagination run riot with such items as cat suits displaying the musculoskeletal system and Starwars character C-3PO. Leggings showing the works of Hieronymous Bosch, a dress with a Game Boy theme and a Beetlejuice suspender belt have also been added to the range. Lillis has chosen nylon as the ideal medium for his new designs, as it enhances the high resolution images.
The designer told the SMH that rise of Instagram is probably responsible for Black Milk’s Facebook likes soaring from 30,000 to 300,000 over the past year. Social media may be responsible for the initial success of the label, but the startling designs will certainly capture passing trade in retail outlets. Black Milk’s distinctive logo and eye-catching motifs will lend themselves very well to such real-world advertising practices as poster printing.
