Fashion designer Tate Boswarva’s collection of sustainable garments hit the runway
When fashion designer Tate Boswarva looks at her local beaches Forty Baskets and Reef Beach, she doesn’t just see a coastline. She recognises the same textures and marks on the rocks that are left behind by bra straps and tight jeans on her body after a long day.
“It’s so mundane, you know, wearing a bra, but it’s something that’s actually transcended time…throughout all women, throughout my family, throughout history,” Tate says.
“I would see those sort of textures and marks in the ocean landscape.”
It is this idea of ‘the female body as a landscape’ that led the 21-year-old fashion designer to launching her own label, ATTÈ, at this year’s Australian Fashion Week.
“I’m not someone that could stand in front of a crowd and debate feminism,” Tate explains.
“However, I would love to express my morals and my values through the clothes. That’s my way of speaking to the world.”
The arts have always been a part of Tate’s life. Her family friend was a bridal designer and made everything from bridal gowns to Tate and her sister’s Christmas outfits on an industrial sewing machine.
It is this same machine that was used by Tate to create her label collection, after being gifted it following her family friend’s passing in 2022.
“It really feels like a full circle moment,” Tate says.
She had always wanted to go into the fashion industry, but the choice to study fashion design wasn’t so easy.
“It felt like I always wanted to do it, but I think I was a bit scared to make that jump as it’s a tough industry,” she says.
“Everyone always says, ‘Oh, you know, what’s your plan B?’”
Garments from fashion graduate Tate’s label collection, ATTÈ
But Tate didn’t let that stop her. Thanks to an ‘incredible textiles teacher’ in Year 12 who told her she simply needed to go to TAFE, Tate applied for the Bachelor of Fashion Design a mere two weeks before the program started.
Three years later, just weeks after graduating, Tate launched her label ATTÈ on the fashion week runway.
“It was just incredible,” Tate says.
In previous fashion weeks, current students like Tate supported and admired the designers on the runway.
This time round, Tate and her fellow graduates, who have become ‘life-long friends,’ were able to walk out on that runway together.
“It was our turn,” she says. “That was so special.”
Ideas around ‘the female body, sustainability and lived experience’ have always been paramount in her work. Tate aims to use natural fibres and dead stock or waste materials. During her studies, a collaboration with Australian women’s wear brand Dish led to her upcycling seven garments by naturally dyeing them and using plastication, which involves melting plastic onto them.
‘It’s all about thinking of new ways…to be more sustainable.’
While undertaking TAFE’s The Next Garde program alongside working out of her home studio in Manly, Tate is eager to learn more about the fashion industry and gain further experience.
Down the track, Tate dreams of having her own brand which continues following ‘this rhetoric of sustainability, intentional garments and artistry.’
