Award-winning fashion graduate Reggie Anzela discusses the impacts Black Lives Matter had on diversity and inclusion in the fashion industry.
I think growing up, I never really saw - I'm from Indonesia - so I never saw a lot of Asian representation in the media.
I found that when I came to Melbourne I thought, 'ok this is a new world, I feel a little different but Melbourne is pretty diverse,' and a lot of people here came from different backgrounds and I feel like that's a good thing.
Since the Black Lives Matter movement I've seen a lot of people of colour start showing up in the media and I'm really happy about it, since most of my friends also come from other parts of the world.
It's good to see that people have started to acknowledge it.
I always think that whenever i work together with my other friends from other countries it's going to bring a new value.
My mum always says there's diversity in values and you always need to be friends with other people who are not from the same country is you so you can learn about each other's culture.
I think it's also something that we need to implement in our design, not trying to borrow cultures and create something from it, but it's more about acknowledging it.
For example, one of my previous projects I worked on a clothing pack specially for people with visual impairment with Guide Dogs Victoria.
So there was a need to create a garment that is heavily textured so people with vision impairment can actually feel the garment.
Usually designers try and put more texture into their garments without any reason, just for the visual effects, but we can also talk about how people will feel it.
And that's just one little step that it designer can take to make fashion more accessible other people.