PLAYING dress-up as a child, Laura Petruccelli could never have imagined it could lead to catwalks of Milan and Paris.
The 25-year-old Thomastown student fashion designer is moving
closer to that dream after being named as one of the select few to take
part in Melbourne Spring Fashion Week’s student “runway” show on
September 1.
One of seven girls, Petruccelli watched her mother making clothes
for the family and aspired to be a fashion designer as a youngster, but
schoolyard bullying made her doubt herself and she left school.
“I was told I would never be good at anything; where are those people now?” she says.
After a career in retail, Petruccelli was lured back to her love
of fashion at age 23 and joined the Kangan Institute’s fashion design
program in Richmond with the belief she was “much stronger”.
“Kangan is so different and supportive,” she says.
Petruccelli is one of seven Kangan Advanced Diploma of Applied
Fashion Design and Technology students selected for the fashion week’s
emerging designer programs. “For students to be accepted into Spring
Fashion Week’s runway [parade] is huge; it’s a springboard to bigger
things.”
She hopes it will launch her label, Riveressco Presents 0.7, which
uses a Latin-derived word meaning “I will rise again”. It refers to her
life after being bullied, with the numerals indicating the seven girls
in her family. Petruccelli will sell her off-the-rack creations through a
retail outlet run by her sisters.
While her mother inspired her through practical demonstrations to
make clothes, it has been the whisper of the ocean that has inspired her
designs.
A jellyfish washed ashore at Phillip Island, its tentacles
sweeping in and out with the waves, captured her imagination and led her
to order a special fabric with bright, neon colours to capture the
creature’s essence.
“Life gives me inspiration,” Petruccelli says.
