16 Nov 2016

Is this the fashion of the future?

From Nine To Noon, 10:10 am on 16 November 2016

Nixi Killick was barely out of Melbourne fashion school, when her unique brand of quirky future-focused fashion caught the eye of the pop diva Lady Gaga. 

Although she says it almost came to nothing when she assumed an email in her junk mail box from Lady Gaga was spam.   

“I got this completely random email in my junk box and it was from Lady Gaga and I’m like that can’t be real … delete! And then I got another one saying ‘Hey did you get our email?’ I was like no this can’t be real.

“Later I was at my parents’ house in the bush and my dad answered the phone and he’s like “I just talked to Lady Gaga!’ He was freaking out! It was so bizarre. My main piece of advice is always check your junk box.”  

Killick had an unconventional upbringing which she says informs her work.

“I grew up in the circus in NSW, my parents were both amazing artists and our family home is this abandoned primary school in a national park. It was this amazing sanctuary, removed for the real world.”

When she went to Melbourne to study she found she had different cultural reference points.

“We didn’t have TV or anything like that when I was growing up and the school that I went to had six kids - we didn’t wear uniform, we didn’t have shoes.

“My work comes from a place that has a different set of influences if you had a traditional upbringing you would have all this set of collateral and baggage and cultural references that everybody has.”

Since graduating Lady Gaga has asked Killick to create costumes for her world tour she has designed for Kimbra and Killick’s label NXK has been hitting runways around the world.