STYLEAID is one of the most comprehensive fashion events our state has to offer. It showcases an array of fashion talent, from the state’s shining luminaries right down to the more glowing and glistening emerging talent, the kind which glint at the corner of your eye.
Zoe Trotman is one such emerging designer, her work a veritable sun exploding with colour. With a label called Lonely 8-bit Heroes, it’s clear from the outset that Trotman’s work is the antithesis of sober fashion, of safe layering, of black on black, and is rather something drunk on fun.
Digitally printed icy pole leggings mash with oversized knitted dresses, beaded with truck stop iconography including slices of pie and steaming coffee cups. Asymmetrical Lycra bodysuits, sculptured leather jackets and skirt pants – all executed in loud contrasting acid colours and geometric prints – are Trotman’s usual fair.
‘Lonely 8-Bit Heroes makes clothes with an intense aesthetic,’ Trotman said with aplomb when asked about her label. ‘A melange of styles, colour and old craft techniques including knitting and mosaic, come together in a lampoon of the panache. I love clothes that say something, tell a story, or make me laugh.’
Trotman initially kicked off her education by nabbing first class honours in photo media and interactive multimedia from Edith Cowan University (ECU), winning prizes for graphic design and landing a spot in the coveted Golden Key Society. But that didn’t quench her burning passion for fashion, which naturally started young.
‘One (of my earliest fashion memories) would be from my dress up box . I had an amazingly diverse collection – complete with fox fur hats, un-matched heels, eye-patches and She-Ra costumes. This early cache – a cacophonous mixture of the super tacky and the über stylish – in some way inspired my tendency to create garments which tend to jostle for attention.’
Soon after graduating from ECU Trotman began hand sewing costumes for a photo shoot she was planning. By 2007, she’d enrolled in fashion at Polytechnic Tafe. By second year she had won Best Static Display. By the third, Designer of the Year.
‘When I’m making stuff, I’m not particularly focused on what technologies or styles I’m mixing together,’ Trotman said of her gung-ho pastiche approach to fashion.
‘I create digital prints because I’m never really satisfied with the fabric I can find to buy, and I end up making my own fabric anyway, usually with the painfully long process of patchwork. Digital printing doesn’t save me money, but it saves me a lot of time.’
Her work is nostalgic and directional. It harks back to the ’70s inspired computer game imagery while heavily courting a ’90s DIY club kid aesthetic that the likes of Empress Stah, Sexy Galexy and D-Flux embodied here in Perth. Its fashion as front, fashion as statement of individuality, but most importantly fashion as outrageous fun.
‘I love the ways in which we communicate inside culture. I love stories told in icons – the way certain things are infused with meaning, and eventually can be used as almost emotional shorthand.
‘Most of what I do is an effort to expose and give over a little bit of my soul – whether it’s my childhood memories of video games, or a catalogue of the food i like to eat.’
STYLEAID takes place on Friday July 30 at the Burswood Grand Ballroom. Zoe Trotman’s Lonely 8-bit Heroes is available online from www.etsy.com/shop/zozatron.
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
