Across the universe tonight.

I've been working up to this moment for some time, trying to figure out how to start, what to say.

Everybody has to start somewhere, even if it's in the middle, so here it is, my first blog. A bit of a mish mash to begin with.

I am a clothing designer based in Newcastle, Australia and this blog is a way for me to bring people along for the ride as I'm driven along the design path. In my experience so far, I've come to believe that art owns me. I could justifiably admit that sometimes I don't enjoy it, but as an addict, I just can't let go. It's in me.

So, I plan to diarise things past, present and future, without the constraint of order, as I'm affected by them enough to want to share them.....But, I think it would be a good idea to provide some context here... that is to say I am a self taught designer: I started to learn how to apply my design ideas when I was 30, and ten years on I am just beginning to realise some success. What can I say? Well, there's only one thing I can say and that is, I did it my way.

I recently won my first design award here in Newcastle, via the Frock On! Design Competition. Actually I won two in the one go - firstly the category for Red Carpet and secondly the Designer of the Year Award. After ten years of development as a designer, I was so amazed that I'd won this prize that I actually didn't believe I had truly won for about a week. Success in fashion is hard won, but once achieved, especially for something that fundamentally owns you, is incredibly satisfying.

I won the competition with a gown that I named 'Nightflight to Venus', a futuristic art-deco

gown made of a sheer pink silk-metal fabric. This gown is about audacity bound up in the elegance of geometric patterning. The sheer beauty of each of the thirty or so perfectly matched panels of this design is a tribute to every artist or thinker who has reached, their way. Realising the concept for this gown, it was important to me to be true to the original vision, no matter how difficult.

Tonight, I see a golden spaceship. It's nearly ready to take off across the universe - it's the night flight to Venus. Inside this space ship, there's a party happening. Everybody is dressed up to the nines in their best party clothes. There's dancing and laughing and Boney M is there on the flight deck singing"Nightflight to Venus, Our new favourite place"! We should have lift off pretty soon.