Catherine van Amstel

Label: Catherine van Amstel

For QUT fashionista Catherine van Amstel, it was love at first sight. At the ripe young age of six, Catherine was exposed to the glitz and glamour of the fashion world. The pure fantasy and excitement from that evening is still clear in her mind and she hasn’t looked back since. Her designs are exquisite, but even more so is the way in which she so eloquently describes her design style. She is influenced by her childhood, growing up in South Africa in a post-Apartheid time, where a rainbow nation of joyous people hoped so much for a better future, only to be slowly crushed by the oppression of imperfect leaders. Feelings of hope amidst poverty and disillusionment are reflected in her graduate collection.

Catherine utilises bright colours, fresh designs and prints on prints to give her compilation a vibrant and youthful feel. She develops her own prints for stretchwear to give her collection a modern edge. Catherine uses the environment we live in today to begin her design process. She integrates the environment, public opinion, colours on billboards, shapes of buildings, political commentary, historical debates and a general progression in peoples’ attitudes in her work. Catherine believes that the reflections of life experience in clothing are vital to the evolution and growth of fashion.

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