Shot by Connor Sprague

Interview with Elliot Christmas

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Tell me a bit about yourself and your brand!

I run my brand, Fragile Minds, where I design and manufacture clothing and produce content. I’m the Creative Director and solely responsible for pretty much everything that goes on. Fragile Minds started as an independent brand by just me. Everything was done by hand in house but today I have two full time interns and a few workers as we get higher demand, but it remains in-house.

It’s classic for young people to talk about starting a fashion brand and never actually do it, but you seem to have overcome that stereotype. What pushed you to actually start Fragile Minds?

For me, focusing on starting my brand was a way to escape my lifestyle and get my shit together when I was younger. I could see the value in clothes and fashion and gained a real sense of purpose through understanding the process of production. I developed an appreciation for what goes into making clothes and also wanted to create a sustainable and ethical way of producing them to align with my values as a person.

Most of your clothing has been produced in your Sydney home in relatively small batches as part of exclusive collections. Do you feel any pressure to expand your production line as your brand grows?

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As a society we love fast fashion and this sucks, it’s all Zanrobe, Industrie et cetera in Sydney who mass produce and mass market. This kills innovation and makes it really hard for independent brands like me who don’t have a heap of money and reach to thrive. It’s really hard to compete with fast fashion industries and stay independent and I struggle with that. I make my clothes in my home by hand and as much as I love that, I honestly feel so much fucking pressure. I’ve been trying to scale production and so I’ve had some workers and interns come to my home and help sew and print. At the moment I can sustain doing what I want to be doing with the resources I have but eventually I know I will have to consider other options. I’m a big believer in “make do with what you have”; you’re never going to have everything that you need, but I also feel heaps of pressure from that. I just try not to let that affect me and my brand’s
identity negatively.

The launch of your most recent collection brought together celebrated more than just fashion with local DJs, performers, tattoo artists and more. How important is having a sense of community to you - not just in fashion but in all creative industries?

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​ Super important. It’s how we can start a movement. With my brand I want to build a community that is educated and aware of the process that goes into making the clothes and who can collaborate and help each other because it’s hard to do these things if there’s no support. I can’t do everything perfectly alone, as much as i’d like to, it’s just not viable and this makes it hard to take the most sustainable and ethical route because it’s expensive and timely. I don’t want to neglect these routes though, I have to stick true to my moral values and so i’m trying to build a community that supports pursuing these.

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Growing up, who or what influenced your style the most?

Keith Ape (@chrt_keithape) was the first cool Korean person I saw and this was really inspiring for me to start dressing uniquely. Also skate culture from when I skated and a bit of eshay culture shaped me too to be honest.

Fragile Minds collection shot by @dannydhenderson

You mention eshay culture, how did that translate into your clothes?

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I guess through my graphics. I do a lot of throw- up [a style of graffiti] and graf-style graphics in my pieces. The eshay subculture also resonates with the messaging behind the things that I do and you’ll definitely see it incorporated a lot more in the types of clothes I make in the future.

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What else can we expect in the future? Tell us what’s in the works.

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I garnered quite a bit of attention from my last event and I want to embrace this by creating some entry-level pieces that are easier to market so more people can buy into the brand. I’m doing a tee drop this month with simple logo tees. January I’m doing a RATW x Fragile Minds drop, then a collab with @dallas_hurts in February, a vest drop in March followed by a June winter collection. I’ve been all over the place!

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Super busy! What do you wish you could have told yourself when you were just starting Fragile Minds?

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​Be a bit more calculative. When I started out with Fragile Minds I was almost a bit deluded with inspiration and “believe in yourself and anything’s possible” energy. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to have that, but I was overly ambitious and worked hard but didn’t really have a plan. As I got busier, not having a strong plan made things pretty stressful. I reckon if I’d been more calculated in my approach to things I would’ve gotten where I wanted to be a bit easier.

I’d also tell myself to have balance. I haven’t had a lot of balance for the last three years in my lifestyle. I fell into a creative hole that I couldn’t see out of. I sort of became only goal-focused and had no contact with the ‘real world’, it was so easy to get lost in. Two years ago I was doing 7 days a week, 15 hours a day and, as far as that hard work has gotten me, it really messed with me. You need to take care of yourself. Now I take weekends off, I have people helping me produce and my approach to things is more calculated and organised. This has taken so much anxiety away from my brand and the future and helps me to stay grounded; it works and it’s so important.

Having a clothing brand is so much more than just making clothes and there are huge layers of pressure that build up. Most of that pressure only comes from myself though. The only way to fail is to give up, and whether I do or not is totally in my control. What keeps me going is reminding myself that when I’m not doing this I’m not myself. My brand gives me so much purpose and when I’m not working I don’t feel like me. That probably doesn’t sound very healthy but all the pressure and negatives that come from it are not nearly as bad compared to how I’d feel if I wasn’t doing it at all.

Fragile Minds event shot by @christ.psd