@basjia in Sexiaz by @sly__morikawa
Firstly hello! Can you tell me a little bit about yourselves?Hello hello! You’re speaking with Arielle and Kallista – we run Sexiaz Lingerie with our mum Veronica Richards. We make custom bikinis and garments for sex work, dancing, swimming and simply existing. Everything is handmade to order by our Mumma Vee right here in Naarm.
How did Sexiaz come to be? Vee is a highly skilled seamstress who has been designing clothes and costumes since she was seven. Over time mum has worked in almost every field of fashion – in the 90s she was in her early 20s, a party girl, embedded in the fashion/club kid scene.
She launched her first label at 18 with her sister, WRONG, which was a huge success, affording them a storefront on Chapel Street. We still wear their deadstock WRONG garments.
Think 90s rave wear epitomised.
Even as a young mum, she never stopped, starting two labels, one for children's wear and another for y2k streetwear, which she sold at music festivals and markets. Throughout all of her labels, she has always made fun, sexy clothes... Serious milf behaviour.
Sexiaz Lingerie was born in 2005 after mum had success with her first range costumes for sex work and adult play. Sexiaz was stocked at various adult stores across the country, and she had stalls at all of the Sexpo shows for about nine years. In 2019, after mum decided to stop showing at Sexpo, we made our Instagram page, found our beautiful community, and it’s been a wild, sexy ride ever since.
So I read that your pieces are handmade by your mum, what’s the process of this? Correct! While both of us are involved with the conception and design of many of our garments, when it comes to construction, Vee is the one. We workshop with customers to figure out the colourway, style and design of each piece, and write it up for mum.
Sometimes we will draw up cute custom designs for customers and other times the colourways are quite straightforward. Because everything is customisable, it takes a lot of liasing back and forth, figuring out sizing and specifications, but it’s absolutely worth it and always so much fun.
@ugliest.hottie in Sexiaz
Your brand is definitely a champion for ‘body positivity’, what has shaped this?It’s crucial for us that everyone can see themselves in Sexiaz. We want to use Sexiaz to truly reflect our community, and the talent, beauty, and nuance which is present there.
‘Body positivity’ is a weird term – it ignores the fatphobia and body shaming bullshit that is ingrained in society (and must be destroyed at all costs). And we still have a lot of learning and unlearning to do!!
We are super grateful for the insight from people in our community, who have pointed out where we can be doing better. Every single body is fucking hot!!!
Everyone is sexy as!!!
So want to represent that on our platform and with our garments!
@hole_underreview in Sexiaz
What and who inspires you as you create?The incredibly cool people in Australia, our queer community who have shown us nothing but unconditional love, sex workers, performers and the emerging ballroom scene in Naarm!
To name just a few inspirations, the work of @wrath, @wackie.ju and @scarletalllainace, the inimitable creativity of @newgenderwhodis, @basjia and the House of Silki, House of Divine and our forever icons @wilk_krate, @badgalcovphephe , @hole_underreview and @usernameburnout.
And just each and every one of our customers, who have always been so wildly supportive, especially in the early days of our Instagram. We had so much untapped water and people really invested in us and trusted in us to come through which is so sexy and we are forever honoured!
@usernameburnout in Sexiaz
The sexy Geena in Sexiaz
Sexiaz has created a safe space for queer and non-binary people to express themselves through fashion. Can you tell us something about how this makes you feel, to have such an impact on these communities?
It is so incredible to be able to work with queer community. To celebrate them through custom fashion is an absolute delight, it makes us feel incredibly f****** good! We have been able to meet so many people from our community in real life, especially at the club ie. Dutty & Incognito (thank you @nicolasmate & @c.frim for creating such beautiful queer spaces).
We especially LOVE making customs for queer cuties, we have had the pleasure of creating some really beautiful and meaningful couples fits and gifts ~~~ holding space for people on every part of the spectrum is something very special for us, from making the g-string for your thirst trap, to some sexy non binary bottoms, to custom fit bikinis for trans couples, it’s next level privilege for us 💜 The queer communities have a huge impact on us and the visibility they have allowed us to share with the world is huge.
@basjia in Sexiaz by @sly__morikawa
What is next for the brand, any new launches coming soon?We are hoping to launch our website in spring, with a bunch of new sexy designs and for the coming summer. Up until this point we have done all ordering through Instagram DMs, which has caused delays when things are busy in the summertime. Our website will hopefully streamline the ordering process for our sweet angels, and help us reach more icons – Sexiaz worldwide!! We have an upcoming collab with Laura Miano’s queer concept store Posmo, and more work with our fav @rosepure. This will be our second year with our cutie Instagram community, and maybe if we reopen for a hot vacced summer, we will finally be able to throw a party! The lockdowns have delayed things quite a bit, but we’re really hoping to get on track in September.
Either way you look at it, it’s gonna be sexy asf!