Lifeweekly Gold Coast

Living colour

Ever since she can remember, Dui (a childhood nickname from her half Thai cousins) says she has been interested in art and fashion design.  “I remember at such a young age drawing things and getting people to make them for me. I’ve always loved colour and I’ve always been a bit of a different dresser. I remember insisting on wearing rainbow-striped tights and a tutu to Sunday School once, much to my mother’s horror. I also love different ethnic textiles – everything from Indian to South American stuff,” she says as she sits in her home in Doonan, Queensland, in true testament to this.

Everything the 31 year old wears is a colourful array of prints, block colours, patterns and textures. Dui possesses a natural talent to combine all that sparkles, glows and scintillates. So too is her eclectic home, which could easily make the pages of a designer home magazine, and which is filled to the brim with ethnic trinkets and textiles.

It’s a long way to come for a girl who was born in the small rural town of Kempsey, NSW, in the same hospital as country music legend Slim Dusty. After an upbringing in equally rural Taree, NSW and later Brisbane, by 18 Dui was selling her ‘energy’ paintings and other odds and ends at Sydney markets. Dui says in selling her ‘energy’ paintings (captivating compositions of colour) she realized how much colour affects people and found her love for market life grow.

Two years later, with enough money in her back pocket from market sales, Dui went in search of more colour in the world, buying a ‘round the world trip’ with plenty of stops in Asia, “but I only got as far as Thailand,” she says. After two years she became restless and headed o Japan and later to Goa, where her long love affair with India began.

“I think I was transformed the moment I was first wrapped up in a sari?” she remembers. It’s not surprising, because India brought together all of Dui’s passions – colour, design and textiles. Dui quickly created a range of clothing designs combining traditional Indian fabrics – antique silks and saris – with modern Western fabrics such as corduroy and denim.

Initially Dui had her designs made in Delhi and brought down to the Goa (on India’s west coast) markets and psychedelic beach parties to sell.  “But I kept running out of stock so I ended up finding someone in Goa who could keep up with demand. Living in Goa was, and still is, a big influence in my work,” Dui continues. “The red dust, psychedelic trance music and colour of those times remain firmly imprinted in my memories.”

But, according to Dui, her clothes are about more than just good times and partying – they are also about the feeling they give the person wearing them. “Through my clothes I was able to liberate women from constricting fashion ‘rules’ and to help them enjoy their beauty no matter what their size, shape or background. The gorgeous feminine textiles of India help do just that.”

Apart from a few copyright issues as local Indian manufacturers shamelessly copied her works – “nothing is sacred in India” – it was a relatively care-free existence for Dui for the next seven years, until her father suddenly fell ill in Australia. “I never thought I’d come home, but then Dad got sick and I felt the need to come and be there for my family after being away for so long,” she says.

As her father’s condition improved, torn between the two very different worlds and cultures of Queensland and India, she funded her regular trips by designing and selling her clothes.  As a result, her own fashion label, Boom Shanker, which is a blessing to the Hindu God Shiva, was born.

Today, even though Dui has a husband, Michael, and an active two year old son, Charlie, she continues to travel back to India for four months of every year. In a bid to give back to a country she has got so much from, Dui and Michael have recently become involved in various community projects, which include organizing funding for a village well, building schools in various villages in Jaipur, and the sponsoring of a local Indian girl. Dui’s forethought and designs, which now encompass a broad range of styles, have paid off in the last few years as ethnic clothing has become mainstream fashion, causing many an Australian retail outlet to approach Dui.

“Interest in my stuff has really snowballed in the last few years,” she says.  “Before it was mainly alternative people who wore my clothes or anything ethnic looking. Now it’s anyone. I think it’s because so many of the items can be worn casual or formal, you know – ‘dress it up, or dress it down’. So to meet the demand we’ve got really focused, recruited staff and have been organizing the wholesaling and marketing side of things.”

Dui says her clothes have gone down particularly well on the Gold Coast. “Gold Coasters seem to love the clothes. Perhaps it’s because the clothes are full of colour and are ‘twinkly-sparkly’ like the Gold Coast is,” she muses.