Source: The West Australian
Images: For-Tomorrow

If there’s a local designer who proves you don’t need to follow the conventional route into the fashion industry to be successful, then Arj Selvam is it.

For a start, he is not design-school trained. A University of WA engineering and commerce graduate, he is entirely self-taught.

“After I graduated I worked in the mines for about a month before I realised I hated it,” he laughs.

“I knew I was going to be destined for something else.

“In my final year at uni I had already started looking into the fashion side of things, just researching and drawing, and in my first year out of uni it all started to happen.

“I’d been interested in fashion for as long as I can remember but I just hadn’t thought it was feasible after a six-year degree to turn around and do a complete career 180.”

But that’s exactly what he did.

Selvam’s lack of formal training has in no way prevented his directional menswear (and small capsule range of womenswear) from sparking the interest of international buyers, nor has it prevented him from securing the finest materials and some of the best Australian pattern-makers in the business to get his label off the ground.

“I literally got a sewing machine, bits of fabric from here and there and started making really simple garments,” Selvam explains of his label’s beginnings.

“I didn’t plan to start a fully fledged label; initially it was just a T-shirt idea. But I just thought, ‘well, if I’m going to do this, I might as well do it properly’.

“So I put together a collection of the pieces I had done and started working on making contacts with people in the industry.”

Selvam was born in Sydney but moved to Perth in 1997. He moves back and forth between the two cities, as the majority of his pieces are manufactured in Sydney with Dion Lee’s production team – no small coup.

“I’ve got a really good team on board now and one of the best pattern-makers in Australia, and they all really believe in my concept and my product, which I think is incredibly important,” he says.

A lover of avant-garde designers such as Rick Owens and Ann Demeulemeester, Selvam finds design inspiration in disparate places, from traditional symbols of Australiana to architecture and the concept of minimalism.

The spring-summer collection is called The Black Stump and it’s indicative of Selvam’s desire to create an internationally recognised label that has deeply Australian roots.

The key to what these Australian roots might be are to be found in the materials Selvam uses, and the names he gives his garments. Think sheepskin leather, oilskin, angora, wool and waxed cowhide; “Drover” coats and boots, “Stockman” belts and “Ironbark” high-waisted pants for women.

There’s an obvious nod to rural iconography in these names – the drover, the stockman, the farmer, the shearer – and Selvam is committed to including organic fibres such as bamboo in his collections.

But this isn’t exactly R.M. Williams terrain; it’s edgy Australiana for Rick Owens fans.

“There are a lot of menswear designers out there doing directional clothing and, while each label has its own signature, a lot of them are doing a similar thing,” Selvam says.

“I don’t want to take the Australiana concept too literally – it’s not meant to be country bumpkin in feel – but rather to be inspired by the landscape and materials.”

Only a couple of collections in, Selvam is already designing a full complementary line of accessories, from boots and belts to jewellery and headwear.

That’s an ambitious ploy for a relatively new designer but Selvam says his work has already sparked interest from clients overseas, particularly in Paris where he intends to take his new collection, Ironbark, early next year.

“A lot has happened even just in the last month,” Selvam says.

“I’ve also had some interest from London. It’s still small but it’s good to see that momentum starting.”