Banoffee Launches Fashion Line With Melbourne Brand

Melbourne Spring Fashion Week is well and truly over, but buzz local electro'n'B singer Banoffee, aka Martha Brown, has announced that she will launch an edgy fashion line with Melbourne brand Pageant this November.

 

Started in 2010 by Amanda Cumming and Kate Reynolds, Pageant won 2015's Tiffany & Co National Designer of the Year award. The independent company is known for its fresh, post-feminist take on sports luxe. On its site, the Pageant woman is described as being "autonomous, self-determining and audacious. She possesses a bold individuality and a keen wit. She is astute and streetwise, yet playful and up for adventure. Engaged with art, music and culture, she is savvy yet open-minded, with a thirst for new experiences."

 

Brown's fashion venture will arrive on the back of her second EP, Do I Make You Nervous?, out via Dot Dash/Remote Control on 2 October. The first single, With Her, was produced by Oscar Key Sung, with the video released earlier this week.

 

 

"I'm really excited," Brown says of her fashion collection. "All the clothing was designed at the same time that I was making the tracks for this EP, so everything ties in with the themes of the EP and the tracks. I really wanted to make it all fit together. So hopefully you can see a link between the two when it comes out."

 

Brown has a longtime interest in fashion – and she's been featured in Vogue – but felt ambivalent about entering the industry. "I've always wanted to work in fashion but – this sounds silly – I didn't wanna do it from a fashion angle! I wanted to do something that wasn't completely within the fashion industry. I find it a really difficult arena to navigate – it can sometimes be quite unethical and, for women, the fashion industry is a very dangerous place, I think. So this clothing line I'm hoping is a lot more inclusive of different genders, different sexualities, and also inclusive of different sizes and people just wanting to feel comfortable and have a bit of fun with clothing – instead of it being just strictly 'in style' fashion."

 

Indeed, Brown deems much fashion "unrelatable". "We're not representing the society we live in at all. It's so disheartening. It's really defeating to look and be like, 'Oh, I'm nothing like that person in the magazine', or, 'That looks great on you, but I can't imagine it on me' – because half of the people don't even look very human (laughs). So I think we need to really bridge that gap and get back to the fact that fashion's about playing dress-ups and being silly and having fun – or it is for me, anyway!"

 

Brown will embark on a headline tour behind her EP next month.