The next garde...
The Innovators continues to be a launchpad for FDS graduates to showcase their incredible artisan skills, daring creativity and boundary-pushing designs, with 2025 officially launching The Next Garde, an incubator designed to propel emerging designers into the global fashion arena.
The Next Garde builds on past successes by delivering tailored mentoring from industry collaborators in financial management, media training, local manufacturing, and entrepreneurial skills to assist the selected designers to launch their fashion businesses within The Innovators collective.
At FDS we continue to support our designers in creating a new paradigm that prioritises the environment, ethical design, digital innovation and local manufacturing and we’re proud to be nurturing the next generation of designers who are not only creatively fearless but deeply committed to building a more sustainable and ethical fashion industry in Australia.
As the Australian fashion industry embraces a circular approach to fashion design, our graduate designers are stepping forward with collections that reflect these values.
Meet the Designers
Shiva Yousefpour
SHIYO
Shiva Yousefpour migrated to Australia over a decade ago. She initially lived in Brisbane, where she pursued a degree in Interior Design at Griffith University, but after relocating to Sydney, found the perfect opportunity to follow her true calling in fashion and went on to study at the renowned Fashion Design Studio TAFE NSW
Shiva’s work merges cultural influences with innovative craftsmanship to create sculptural and distinctive designs. Positioned at the intersection of tradition and futurism, her work draws inspiration from architectural forms, artisan approaches, and sustainable practices which are fused together in her eponymous label SHIYO.
SHIYO is a visionary fashion brand that combines architectural precision, cultural heritage, and avant-garde innovation. Rooted in Persian opulence and inspired by Japanese craftsmanship, SHIYO redefines contemporary fashion through sculptural silhouettes, intricate folding techniques, and experimental materials.
At its core, SHIYO is a movement—an evolution of sustainable, boundary-pushing design. The brand champions zero-waste practices, multi-functional garments, and gender-neutral forms, embracing a future where fashion is both expressive and responsible.
Every piece tells a story—where tradition meets futurism, where craftsmanship meets technology, and where individuality is celebrated beyond constraints. SHIYO is not just clothing; it is a manifesto for those who dare to be unbound.
SHIYO has been featured in multiple fashion publications such as Harper’s Bazaar, Vanguard Magazine and It’s Interval, and has been worn by notable figures, including acclaimed singer and actress Danielle Spencer.
eidan Ceilidh
EIDAN CEILIDH
EIDAN CEILIDH is a luxury Australian fashion label that embodies timeless elegance, designed, and crafted with a strong commitment to comfort, quality, and functionality. Blurring the lines between traditional classic tailoring and contemporary couture, the brand creates pieces that are enduring and refined.
Each garment is a reflection of sophisticated design that emphasises handwork, exclusive textures, and meticulous craftsmanship.
Eidan Ceilidh was born in New Zealand but raised in a small country town in Central West NSW where she developed a love of fashion and sewing from a young age, moving to Sydney to pursue her studies at Fashion Design Studio TAFE NSW.
Eidan’s work is rooted in the belief that luxury and functionality should coexist, crafting garments designed to be worn and enjoyed every day. All pieces are thoughtfully produced in Sydney’s Inner West, maintaining a strong focus on quality and craftsmanship. Her work has already been recognised by renowned publications such as Harper’s Bazaar, a testament to the label’s early impact and growing reputation in the fashion industry.
With a deep respect for artisanal techniques and contemporary design, EIDAN CEILIDH offers a refined wardrobe for the modern individual - producing timeless elegance, crafted to last.
daisy-rose cooper
Sleight of Hand (SOH)
Innovating the modern, Daisy-Rose Cooper is a cross-disciplinary designer from the Blue Mountains who conceives each silhouette in the minimalism of city life and merges primeval bushland with her ornamental hand-dyeing & felting. Using a flexible approach within sustainable limitations of fabrics allows her to reveal the variation of colour, texture and patterning innate to natural processes and unconventional applications in dead-stock.
In this, way Daisy-Rose refines the possibility of sustainable practices in contemporary fashion through her label SLEIGHT OF HAND — creating conceptual, ready-to-wear designs in Sydney’s Inner West.
Her work is symbolic of the shifting connection between people, culture, and our changing environments where she pushes the edges of her craft through material, process and collaborations with local artists and continues to shape a visual language of her own instilling an essential, timeless nature into each piece, which commercial fashion has forgotten.
SLEIGHT OF HAND has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue Australia’s Vanguard Issue ‘Class of the Future’, and independent publications Alice.D, It’s Interval and MOB Journal. Working across garment production, sampling, bridal alterations, and print design.
Emily Misaki Hon
FRAGMENT.66
Emily Misaki Hon was born in Sydney, Australia to Japanese and Chinese heritage, and is the founder of FRAGMENT.66. Graduating from the Fashion Design Studio TAFE NSW with a focus on Menswear, Hon’s work is deeply inspired by family stories and personal recounts, exploring identity and connection through deeply personal storytelling where she creates more than clothing—she constructs quiet narratives that reflect a continuous dialogue about alternate understandings of beauty, family, and self.
Raised in suburban dwelling and exposed to various street styles of the early 2000s, her aesthetic is androgynous and expressive—marked by bold, organic silhouettes and delicate layering. Her designs evoke a timeworn quality, offering an introspective take on beauty, memory, and image, each garment poetically handcrafted, merging traditional techniques with a contemporary sensibility.
FRAGMENT.66 is an exploration of identity through the layered language of clothing and personal narrative.
Operating at the intersection of fashion and storytelling, the label blends elements of high street style with refined tailoring, placing a strong emphasis on unique hand-crafted textile treatments and quality fabrications. Each piece examines the temporality of clothing—revealing memories, emotions, and fragments of self weaved into our identity.
Rooted in traditional craftsmanship with contemporary aesthetics, FRAGMENT.66 evokes the poetry of the everyday, drawing inspiration from urban mundanity to create a dreamscape of wearable reflections. The label approaches practices with the commitment to sustainability utilising deadstock materials, natural fibres and hand eco-dyed fabrics.
