Tomorrow’s Heroes: Maddison Brown

One of six Australian creators, innovators and advocates profiled in our new series, Maddison Brown has shaped a legacy that will impact future generations.

Article by Jen Nurick

The actress is an ambassador with Parley for the Oceans, a group whose celebrity endorsements and collaborations with Adidas have raised funds to tackle plastic waste and facilitate worldwide beach clean-ups. Photography by Kelly Geddies.

Before she even held a television script in her hands, Maddison Brown slipped seamlessly into the shoes of Bindi Irwin. Or so thought her parents, who gave Brown the nickname after watching her while away her days outdoors. “I was never in the house when I was a kid,” says Brown, now 24 and a star of Netflix’s “Dynasty” series. “I grew up on a five-acre [two-hectare] property, which is very bushy and rugged, and we had snakes around the house and wallabies, we had a dam, frogs, wild animals.”

In 2018, Brown moved to Atlanta to film the TV soap reboot, now in its fourth season. But her childhood in Dural, a semi-rural suburb of Sydney, set the scene, so to speak, for her deeply rooted environmental consciousness — the reason for her recent return to Sydney.

In September, she was set to embark on an expedition to study the health of the Great Barrier Reef, but the trip was postponed due to Covid-19. “There’s a really magical, special thing about the ocean,” Brown says. It’s a quiet repository for her thoughts, a break from urban living. “To think of something as ancient as the Reef not being there in a matter of decades is very confronting,” she says. “It might not be there for our children, that’s how dire it is.”

In the meantime, Brown is accelerating her impact abroad. She has signed on as an ambassador with Parley for the Oceans, a group whose celebrity endorsements and collaborations with Adidas have raised funds to tackle plastic waste and facilitate worldwide beach clean-ups. Brown’s knowledge on the subject of marine pollution is near encyclopaedic: the ocean is our big- gest ecosystem; marine life accounts for 70 per cent of our oxygen supply. “If you’re buying fish, where is that fish coming from?” Brown presses. “Is this company ethical? Do they care about cleaning up the ocean? Do they take their nets with them or do their nets wash ashore on the beach with a thousand dead fish inside?”

The actor Maddison Brown, best known for her role in “Dynasty”, represents her environmental work in her T-shirt design. Photography by Kelly Geddies.
The idea, Brown says, “was to simply remind people that the ocean is a part of us, a part of our lives”. Photography by Kelly Geddies.

Brown was just 16 when she moved to New York to pursue modelling, walking for Calvin Klein and 3.1 Phillip Lim. Europe and, later, Hollywood called, setting her on a peripatetic path that had her travelling between the modelling and acting worlds until a role in Australia, playing Nicole Kidman’s daughter in “Strangerland” (2015), illuminated her passion. “Warm and nurturing. Those are the two words that come to mind when I think about my experience with Nicole,” she reflects.

Still, coming of age in front of the camera can complicate the process of reconciling one’s reflection. The pressures of rejection and conforming to sample size while living overseas prompted an eating disorder. “At that age, you don’t have the emotional regulation to understand what you’re going through and the requirements for the job,” Brown says, noting the homogenous model line-ups at the time (“blonde, white, 50 kilos”). The expe- rience hardened Brown ahead of Hollywood and — while the industry has diversified, and she has recovered — it renewed her appreciation for her body. “Modelling equipped me very well for rejection, for putting yourself out there and knowing there’s always another opportunity around the corner,” she says.

As she dives into her new role as an advocate for the ocean, there is a palpable symbiosis between Brown’s professional career and her philanthropic one. “It’s easy to feel powerless,” she says of the magnitude of the marine crisis. But, as someone who has endured countless failed auditions, Brown knows it only takes one. “If I can get one person to understand the state of the ocean and how important it is to our survival on this planet — and also what a beautiful ecosystem it is, separate from our survival — then I’m happy with that.” (To take the Parley A.I.R Pledge and commit to reducing plastic waste, go to parley.tv, or follow the group on Instagram).

A NOTE ON THE PHOTOGRAPHY: At the time T Australia commissioned this series, much of the country was in lockdown. As such, our portrait photographer, Kelly Geddes, undertook T Australia’s very first remote shoot, via Facetime and Zoom. Geddes revelled in the challenge, using screenshots and photos of her computer screen to capture the scenes, the latter technique producing some of her favourite pictures. “They had a natural and raw quality to them,” she says. The files were sent to the darkroom service Blanco Negro, where they were hand-printed from a digital enlarger, toned in the darkroom as silver gelatin prints and then scanned for publication as black-and-white images. Each subject wore a T-shirt by the Australian label Nobody Denim; the same style appears in flat lay photographs throughout the series. In these, the T-shirt serves as a “blank canvas”, altered by the subjects in a way that represents the legacy they hope to leave.

 

A version of this article appears in print in our fourth edition, Page 91 of T Australia with the headline:
“Tomorrow’s Heroes”
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If you or someone you know is experiencing disordered eating, seek support from an organisation such as the Butterfly Foundation.

Meet Next-Gen Nanna, Jane Barnes

One half of a legendary Australian Rock ‘n Roll couple, Jane Barnes loves being called ‘”Yai” by her grandchildren.

Article by Lee Tulloch

Jane Barnes is surrounded by musical instruments at her warehouse conversion in Sydney. She is determined that all of her grandchildren experience the joy of learning to play the pian. Photography by Tony Amos.

Jane Barnes

In 2020, when many people slowed down, Jane Barnes learnt to play 100 songs on the guitar. She also performed daily Facebook concerts with her husband, Jimmy, and co-wrote a cookbook with the rock legend. In between, she tended a vegetable garden and regularly cooked for a tribe of family members at her home in the Southern Highlands, New South Wales — a tribe that includes an ever-increasing number of grandchildren (15 at last count). “If I sit around too long, I literally get sore bones, so I’m always moving,” says Jane, who’s dressed in a black cardigan, a silky Dolce & Gabbana skirt covered in hearts and a pair of bejewelled Miu Miu slides.

She and Jimmy have just returned from New Zealand, having travelled on the first flight to operate under the trans-Tasman bubble. They arrived there just in time for the birth of their newest grand-child, Theodore. We meet at their Sydney home, a converted warehouse in the city’s southeast. Downstairs, a big country-style kitchen leads to a recording studio and a rumpus room full of kids’ books and toys, including an old rocking horse and a child-size BMW convertible. A drum kit, grand piano and various guitars are scattered throughout the other rooms, along with Buddha statues and a shrine to the Mushroom Records impresario Michael Gudinski, who died in March.

Throughout their 40-year marriage, Jane has been not only Jimmy’s muse, but also his creative partner and the glue that keeps their family together. They have four adult children (Mahalia, Elly-May, Eliza Jane [“EJ”] and Jackie) and Jimmy has three children from previous relationships (David, Amanda and Megan). The grandchildren range in age from 30-year-old Tabitha to baby Theodore. Jimmy also has two great-grandchildren.

The family’s rock ’n’ roll lifestyle is far from typical (Jane and Jimmy are frequently on the road for shows and holidays, often with the kids and the extended family — a cohort that can include more than 20 people) but Jane is, in many ways, a traditional grandmother (“Always in the kitchen at the stove,” she says). “When I travel and have to fill in the form that asks ‘What is your occupation?’ I put ‘Wife, mother, grandmother.’ Because that’s what I think is probably one of the biggest jobs anybody can have.” Granted, not many grandmothers can play the electronic bagpipes.

Jane was born in Thailand and migrated to Australia at the age of five after her mother, Kusumphorn, married a diplomat, John, whom she met at the Australian embassy in Bangkok. Jane’s maternal grandfather, Khun Gong, was a wealthy merchant who had seven wives and 26 children. Her grandmother, Khun Yai, was his fourth wife.

The Barneses have a home in Thailand and visit at least twice a year (“Jimmy loves it there,” Jane says. “No-one hassles him.”) But while Jane maintains a strong connection with her Thai family, the grandmother who had the greatest influence on her is John’s mother, Violet, who was “welcoming and loving” when Jane, her two sisters and her mother arrived in Canberra in 1963.

She describes Granny Violet as a “big softie” who, she says, “helped to bring us up as Australians with Australian values”. It was her plain Western cooking — Sunday roast, grilled cheese, and scones with home- made jam — that Jane remembers most. One of her recipes, for Irish shortbread, features in the Barnes’ cookbook, “Where the River Bends”, to be released in November.

In Thailand, Jane says, extended families live together, which means there’s always someone on hand to help with the children. It’s a tradition she has tried to maintain. She and Jimmy have been living with their six- year-old grandson, Dylan, while his parents build a home across the road from theirs in Berrima. Meanwhile, Jane’s sister Kaye, an artist, can often be found in the gallery attached to the Barnes’ Sydney warehouse.

Her other sister, Jep, is married to the singer/songwriter Mark Lizotte (“Diesel”), who sometimes jams with the family band and helped Jane with her guitar lessons. “We have family dinners every Sunday when we’re home,” Jane says. “There will be 30 of us, with the kids running around.”

Jane is always happy to help out with the children. “I’m really good with them when they’re really tiny,” she says. “I can always put them to sleep if the parents are getting a bit flustered because they’ve been crying a lot or they’re overtired. I’m a baby whisperer.” She and Jimmy often drive the grandchildren to school, Saturday sport and dance classes. One thing they insist on is that each child learns to play the piano. “We like to keep them busy, and why not learn music? Because it’s the language of the soul,” Jane says. (The next generation is already showing promise. Mahalia’s daughter, Ruby, 12, is a gifted singer.)

As she reflects on her life, Jane says that in many ways she’s still the university student who met Jimmy before a show in Canberra in 1979. “I’m a very positive person — that has remained with me,” she says. As for her big, messy, loving extended family, she says: “I feel I could die happy because we’ve raised kind people.”

A version of this article appears in print in our second edition, Page 94 of T Australia with the headline:
‘Next-Get Nannas’
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A Woman’s Place, Fashion Designer Marta Ferri

In her new book, writer and photographer Robyn Lea takes us into the modern Milanese home of the Italian creative.

Article by Robyn Lea

Marta Ferri’s living room, with a deep-olive Paul sofa suite, designed by Vincent Van Deusen, and tangerine Gio Ponti armchairs. Photography by Robyn Lea.

Milan-based fashion designer Marta Ferri not only embodies modern Milanese style herself but offers her clients made-to-measure dresses, coats, pants and gowns that marry old-world style with a future-forward attitude.

Her creations are known for their unique patterns and colours, though her own childhood wardrobe was surprisingly devoid of both. Her mother, Barbara Frua De Angeli, a respected rug and interior designer who possesses the understated personal style typical of many Milanese women, enforced a preference for monochromatic or muted tones with few patterns.

When Ferri was four, a new annual rhythm was established where she would spend school terms with her mother in Milan and holiday periods with her father, Fabrizio Ferri, a globally renowned photographer who is also a composer, author, set designer and film director, either in New York or roaming the world. When she was with her father, different rules applied: “With him I was free to choose whatever I wanted to wear, so it was like a bomb of colour. I remember going to the mall and choosing brightly coloured towels and bathers, then travelling around the desert with him in a motor home where he was shooting on location, wearing bright colours and sunglasses and drinking Coca-Cola through a straw. I felt like I was in paradise.”

The designer’s office and desk. Photography by Robyn Lea.
Silverware design drawings hang in the games room at her home, not far from the atelier. Photography by Robyn Lea.

After finishing high school, Ferri worked in a Milanese fabric boutique for a year, before relocating to New York where she was offered a job at her father’s business, Industria, a full- service studio facility that attracted photographers such as Annie Leibovitz and Peter Lindbergh, and clients including Gucci and Louis Vuitton.

During her time in the United States, Ferri started dating her future husband, Carlo Borromeo, who was studying in San Francisco at the time. Despite their budding romance, however, Ferri applied for a job at Prada and at the age of 24 began travelling the world as part of its visual merchandising team.

After 18 months on the road, Ferri was ready to explore her long-held dream of working for herself. She planned to become a jewellery designer, and having had some wonderful experiences with Borromeo in Argentina, where his family had a home, they decided to start there, each quitting their jobs. However, it wasn’t to be. With the encouragement of her future mother-in-law, Paola Marzotto, Ferri had been designing her own clothes to wear at events and women had begun inquiring about her designs. Ferri convinced Borromeo they should stay in Milan after all, so she could establish her own fashion label.

In 2009, Ferri opened her first atelier in a small apartment space adjacent to the home she shared with Borromeo in Milan’s historic centre. After painting the interior like a circus tent in pink and grey stripes and installing furniture, including a sewing table, she was soon receiving clients by appointment. She began ordering sumptuous fabrics from around Europe and sourcing historic and vintage textiles that were no longer in production, and a specialist tailor was employed to sew each garment to her specifications.

Marta Ferri in the Palazzo Borromeo courtyard, wearing a dress of her own design. Photography by Robyn Lea.

Ferri brings an instinctive and decisive approach to her bespoke pieces. During the first client meeting, measurements are taken and requisite details are noted, including the format of the event and the client’s favourite colours. Ferri intuitively gleans other information, such as the client’s personal traits. Then she begins with the most vital ingredient — the fabric: “Once a client falls in love with a fabric, the design is born from that material.” Silhouettes are discussed, designs are drawn up and the first fitting takes place within days.

Ferri enjoys creating pieces for women of all shapes and ages, and urges them to forget about what other people think. She says, “While it is important to wear something appropriate for your age and for the event, in the end I encourage them to do whatever they feel like. I ask, ‘Do you feel comfortable in it? Do you feel beautiful in it?’ and if they answer yes, then that’s what is essential.”

Ferri followed the same “Do whatever makes you feel good” philosophy in decorating the three-storey home she shares with Borromeo and their two children. Located a short walk from her atelier, the heritage-listed house features a mix of contemporary and antique objects. Entering at street level, you are greeted by a leafy courtyard. Upstairs, the immense first-floor living room is bathed in natural light thanks to its corner location and large windows. Furnishings include heirloom pieces from her grandmother’s home in Liguria and twin wicker chaises longues from the Borromeo family’s Sardinian estate. Teak boards salvaged from a former school in India line the floor.

Ferri has had several important role models in her life, including her mother and mother-in-law, who both encouraged her early interest in fashion. The breadth of Ferri’s informal training, coupled with an instinct for design and innate personal style, have earned her the title of a world-class designer.

This is an edited excerpt from “A Room of Her Own: Inside the Homes and Lives of Creative Women” by Robyn Lea, (Thames & Hudson, $65; available now).

A Woman’s Place, Alice Stori Liechtenstein

Writer and photographer Robyn Lea visits an Italian Design Curator living in an Austrian Castle.

Article by Robyn Lea

The west side corridor of Schloss Hollenegg castle, Austria, featuring a carved door from the late Renaissance. Photography by Robyn Lea.

When the topic was first raised in 2004, Italian design curator Alice Stori Liechtenstein dismissed the idea of moving into her husband’s Austrian castle, Schloss Hollenegg. It was an unexpected decision, given the home’s 52 rooms, 16th-century Renaissance courtyards and recorded history dating back to 1163. Not even the grand staterooms with their beautifully preserved frescoes, rare ancient tapestries and gilt-framed royal portraits could tempt Liechtenstein to change her mind. It took 11 years and a thoroughly modern plan for her to reconsider.

Liechtenstein, who grew up in the northern Italian city of Bologna, did a degree in design and interior architecture at the European Institute of Design in Milan. Her graduate thesis was supervised by Alessandro Guerriero, one of the founders of avant-garde design group Studio Alchimia. “From Guerriero, I learned to build a story behind even the most mundane of objects, to search for a philosophy, to look beyond the material,” Liechtenstein says.

After graduating, she worked with Guerriero and other influential designers at Radiosity in Milan and helped to create the online design, art and fashion company Yoox. After completing a master’s degree in the design of public spaces at Elisava in Barcelona, she was ready to launch a career as an independent design curator. But first, she needed a holiday.

Velvet-upholstered Neo-Gothic furniture pairs with 17th- century Brussels tapestries. Photography by Robyn Lea.
The Liechtensteins’ family dining room, complete with a festive accent.Photography by Robyn Lea.

A friend from Milan had invited her to join a two-week sailing trip around the Greek islands. She found herself increasingly drawn to the vessel’s skipper, Alfred, a self-contained man with strawberry blond hair: “I liked the fact that he did not speak much, but when he did, he never said anything stupid. He seemed so grounded, even at sea, and had so much authority without seemingly trying.”

Later, she was surprised to learn that the object of her affections was otherwise known as Prince Alfred Paolo von und zu Liechtenstein. Three years earlier, at age 26, he had inherited Schloss Hollenegg, a castle in the Austrian countryside. Alfred’s ancestor Johann I Joseph, Prince of Liechtenstein, bought the estate in 1821, along with 11 other significant properties in the region, for his son Prince Franz de Paula of Liechtenstein.

Alice and Alfred married in 2005. However, the castle’s isolated rural location, three hours south of Vienna, meant she could not imagine herself making a home there. “I could just never see myself living in that kind of setting, sitting on a velvet sofa or taking long walks in the countryside,” she says. So, they lived instead about an hour away in Graz, which has an international airport, ensuring easy access to her projects in Venice, Milan and Paris.

Liechtenstein threw herself into Austrian life, which included lecturing for the master’s degree program in exhibition design at Graz’s FH Joanneum university, establishing a local design business and writing a design blog. Slowly, things began to change. She added German to her long list of languages, started to feel a part of the local design community, developed a network of local friends and had three children. However, juggling family life with frequent travel for work, lecturing and running her business began to take its toll and she yearned for a simpler life. She came up with a plan: given various practical impediments to moving the family away from Austria to one of the epicentres of the contemporary design world, why not move into the castle and invite the design world there?

The Baroque drawing room, featuring contemporary aluminium chairs by OS & OOS, created for the castle’s 2019 exhibition theme, Ad Mensam (Latin for “at the table”). Photography by Robyn Lea.

In 2014, the family relocated to Schloss Hollenegg. Soon after, Liechtenstein established the non-profit Schloss Hollenegg for Design to support research, development and understanding of design. The concept came from a simple idea: “I suddenly realised that when you mix the old and the new, it’s much more exciting. The aim was to try to get modern elements into each room.” Such unexpected juxtapositions would heighten the impact of both the contemporary works and the ancient settings.

Just as Liechtenstein learned how to interpret design years ago in Milan, she now helps others to do so: “It’s really important to me to teach people how to interpret objects, to understand how things are made and why they’re made in that way — not just how to use them, but to ask ‘What’s the meaning behind them?’ ” Every year, different rooms of the castle are opened for a design exhibition. Annual themes are like chapter headings in Liechtenstein’s own personal story and relate to her experiences living in the castle. For the first year, in 2016, she chose the theme “slow”, reflecting the pace of her new rural life and the challenge of transitioning away from the constant flow of stimuli in her previous one.

Curation is the vehicle by which Liechtenstein has chosen both to learn and to teach: “For me, curation is like writing a book, telling a story or making a film. It’s about the experience. It’s about suspending your disbelief for an hour or two, like when you immerse yourself in a film at the cinema.” She believes that as humans, “we have an inherent urge to create and make, and are continually, and often inadvertently, building a legacy that will outlive our physical existence”.

Design has helped Liechtenstein immerse herself in the rooms and history of the castle. It has also been the catalyst for opening the castle to the general public for the first time since the Middle Ages, when villagers lived inside its fortified walls. She has achieved her goals by trusting her professional and personal instincts and by honouring her needs as a creative thinker.

This is an edited excerpt from “A Room of Her Own: Inside the Homes and Lives of Creative Women” by Robyn Lea (Thames & Hudson, $65).

T SERIES: Friends Who Inspire Each Other

Two artists who bonded over a shared passion for both Dutch masters and contemporary queer portraiture.

Article by Coco Romack

From left: Salman Toor, artist, 37, and Doron Langberg, artist, 35, with their respective portraits — “Salman” and “Doron” (both 2021) — that they painted of each other for T. Photographed at Langberg’s studio in Ridgewood, Queens, on March 3, 2021. Photography by Jason Schmidt.

Doron Langberg

To see Salman’s paintings is to know him. I was blown away by his 2018 show at Aicon Gallery in NoHo, Manhattan, and immediately messaged him on Instagram. As we became friends — we bonded over how much we could nerd out about this or that Dutch master — the interest in queer figurative painting was growing; we were being put in the same shows, being written about in context with each other. The art world conversation converged with our friendship, expanding what we had in common. When I first visited his studio in Bushwick in 2019, I suggested we trade paintings. He gave me what I would come to see as a self-portrait: a naked man looking in the mirror, examining himself with his pants pulled down to his feet. His work deals with the everyday representation of queer life — whether it’s issues of politics, immigration, family and religion or going out to a bar or hanging out in your apartment dancing to Whitney Houston — allowing the viewer access to a more layered, complex idea of what it means to be queer. That’s his work’s real strength: how true it is to our experience. And from my studio, he chose a dick portrait I made.

Salman Toor

The penis portrait, there’s so much tenderness in it. Doron’s work is about putting love into the sex act and bringing what was once considered dangerous or sordid into the language of high culture. It’s brave and direct, and I like the sense of energy. One of the things that attracted me to him was his flamboyant manner, which is much like mine. He’s warm, but very sassy. Usually my paintings don’t have a source, but in making his portrait I had a nice hard look at Doron reclining on my sofa and made two quick ink drawings of his face. The pose I decided to paint from memory, thinking of how his hand was resting on his cheek, his knuckles, the distance between his eyes.Doron is from Israel and I’m from Pakistan. I want to convey the shared experience of growing up as a queer boy in a community that may not welcome it. That’s an experience shared by so many people across so many cultures, and I hope that is somehow visible to anyone who looks.

A version of this article appears in print in our third edition, Page 123 of T Australia with the headline:
‘Friends Who Inspire Each Other’
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A Woman’s Place, Fashion Designer and Artist Heidi Middleton

Writer and photographer Robyn Lea takes us into the home of one of Australia’s most respected visionaries.

Article by Robyn Lea

Heidi MiddletonHeidi Middleton, photographed at her Palm Beach home. Photography by Robyn Lea.

In 2003 when the cult clothing label Sass & Bide was in full flight, fashion designer and artist Heidi Middleton began house-hunting, focusing on the Palm Beach peninsula of Sydney’s Northern Beaches. The sunny 1940s home she found provided Middleton with a vital counterpoint to the increasing demands of the business, which felt “like a friendly, hungry monster that needed constant feeding”.

With three fashion lines under the one label and up to four ranges presented each year, long holidays were rare. She and the label’s co-founder, Sarah-Jane Clarke, covered for each other when their children were born, but in 2007, when Middleton took time off for the birth of her second daughter, Elke, she was forced on an extended break when, 12 hours after the birth, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After treatment, she made a full recovery.By 2011, Middleton and Clarke were ready for a change. They sold the controlling share of their company and, in 2014, stepped out of it altogether. Now free to travel, Middleton and her family moved to Paris for a 12-month sabbatical. They settled into a light-filled Parisian apartment in the eighth arrondissement and Middleton reignited her love of painting, drawing, collage and ceramics.

The master bedroom in Middleton's home. Photography by Robyn Lea.
A gateway to the garden at Middleton’s Sydney home. Photography by Robyn Lea.

During a weekend in the Médoc region of south-western France, they went house-hunting. “It’s wild and rugged, but there is a poetry and romance to the landscape and the old villages,” she says. They went to see an 1830s manor house, Les Tourelles, in Saint-Christoly-Médoc.

The five-bedroom home was set on three hectares and included an orchard, a small vineyard, a dairy and a barn. Despite having been uninhabited for several years and feeling somewhat derelict, its foundations were strong and it had elegant proportions, with turrets framing the facade and interiors with four-metre ceilings. For Middleton, the potential for transformation was intoxicating. They made an offer and three days later owned the home. “The idea was for my husband to host meditation retreats in Bordeaux and for me to start a new fashion and art business called ArtClub,” she says. “This was going to be chapter two of living in France.”

The main bedroom features a bath with views of Sydney’s Pittwater. Photography by Robyn Lea.

Middleton began renovating the house and her two daughters started at the school in the local village. While rebuilding the home’s interiors, she also began reimagining her vision for the future. “I remember thinking I needed to surround myself with great people, good food and flowers. I decided that every mealtime I’d light candles, have music playing and cook for the girls.” She began to view her experiences through a new lens. “By the time we left France in 2018, I was happy and the house was finished — there had been so much growth and self-reflection.”

Back in Sydney, ArtClub was born. The online-only atelier offers rare vintage garments along with Middleton’s paintings and original clothing designs. The antithesis of fast fashion, each new piece is created from remnant fabric that she saves from landfill, and is designed to be handed down through generations. They are sewn in Middleton’s atelier by local collaborators, each of whom signs and numbers the garments like limited-edition artworks before they are mailed to customers.

Middleton has set up her business in Surry Hills, in the heart of the city, and the company has a wonderful buzz and energy. She continues to adjust her life to find the right rhythm and flow, and by living with an open heart and expressing her inner world through art, fashion, poetry and interiors, she has become an inspiring example to like-minded women around the world.

This is an edited excerpt from “A Room of Her Own: Inside the Homes and Lives of Creative Women” by Robyn Lea (Thames & Hudson, $65).