Aztec Queen
Costume designed after some home school history lessons.

Biro Lady
Fashion drawing in biro, sketched at age 15.

From an early age, Rosie has demonstrated a keen interest in clothing design, creating outfits for her paper cut-out dolls. By her teens she was designing apparel in much of her spare time.

As a registered homeschooler, Rosie had the freedom to incorporate her interest in design into her history lessons, as shown in her interpretation of an Aztec queen's outfit.

Rosie joined Sydney Distance Education High School, and continued to integrate her interest in fashion in her school projects. For her main Visual Arts work in year 11 she constructed a pair of lead and aluminium high heel shoes and "pimped" some black leather work boots to make them appear girly.

In her HSC year Rosie's Major Work for Visual Arts was a painted catwalk on which stood drawings and collages of models wearing her creations and encased in perspex stands. Here, fashion was art too.

In 2006 Rosie's first sewing machine was purchased and this marked the beginning of her journey to transfer her designs from 2-dimensional paper to an actual garment. Even as a new user to the sewing machine, Rosie demonstrated her focus on her design goals, undeterred by the many new skills she needed to learn. On her first real sewing piece, Splashes of Spring: Lady in Hat Rosie created a savoy suede cusion edged with ruching and piping, applique, machine and handsewn flowers.

Christine's Passion, Rosie's major work in the HSC Textiles and Design course, is a full length ball gown with boned bodice.

Made from shot silk dupion, it includes lace, fabric roses, velvet ribbon, metallic braid, thick unconventional piping, glass beads, embroidery and braid loops.

Rosie will go against tradition if her instinct tells her to. In her major work, she used plastic buttons in the mock button closure instead of fabric-covered ones, despite advice against this, with stunning results.

Rosie has a great sense of colour, textural balance / contrast and design. She often prefers unconventional materials and is very innovative in her approach.

Rosie's philosophy is to remain fresh to her own creative ideas, and she hopes to continue developing and improving her skills with textiles, creating innovative and beautiful designs.

Perspex Encased Figures

Coloured pencil drawings (part of HSC Visual Arts Body of Work)