It’s no secret that you need to have some serious hustle to make it in fashion, which is why were beyond excited to hang with one of the coolest and most dedicated industry players in the game today. You might know Ava Nirui through her Instagram, @avanope—which has 231k followers and counting—or for her hugely successful collaboration lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…
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When I was in high school, I started a clothing brand with my then best friend. I would screen-print t-shirts and sell them at school. It was at the height of rave culture in like, 2005; rave culture during my lifetime, at least. I would trade other clothes or people would just pay cash for them. That’s when I first became interested in making clothes.
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I’ve always loved starting my own projects, but then maybe five years later, me and the same friend, we started this little publication, Ante, in Australia. There’s a bunch of issues. It was all centralized around art and more niche fashion. I wasn’t an expert in any of these things, but I was very obsessed with magazines, and I loved writing, and I always wanted to be a journalist. I would sit in Borders [bookstore] for hours and read back-to-back issues of Dazed, and they would be like, $20 because I lived in Australia where they had to pay import taxes. I probably learned everything that I knew from Dazed, and then I ended up being a contributor, which was awesome.
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I love working with Marc Jacobs. I’ve worked with them for about two years on my own stuff. It was really amazing. They had so much faith in everything that I did, and Marc himself was very supportive. I’m such a fan of his. I think he is the most important designer of my lifetime, if not of all time. He was one of the first people to bring in art collaborations in the way that he did, especially with like, Sprouse and Murakami. They were just so iconic.
I love Stray Rats and Cactus Plant Flea Market. In the way of like, luxury stuff, I love Louis Vuitton, I love Prada, I love Martine Rose, I love Sacai. I mean, there’s a zillion. I just love people who are pushing the envelope when it comes to fashion. I also love smaller brands. I like buying vintage, too. I think it’s good for the environment.
"I think Marc Jacobs is the most important designer of my lifetime, if not of all time."
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"I think Marc Jacobs is the most important designer of my lifetime, if not of all time."
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Bootlegs, sometimes they’re harder to find. I mean, it’s crazy because when I did that first interview, the market for bootlegs wasn’t as saturated as it is now. A true bootleg, one that you would find in some weird market that had probably been sitting on a shelf for 10 years or whatever, I think was strangely very rare and hard to find.
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There was this guy that worked on Knickerbocker in Bushwick, and he was the bootleg dealer guy. He and I kind of became friends, and he would text and email me photos of weird things that he would find, like socks and scarves and t-shirts and hoodies, and he was always dripped out in bootlegs. It was the same stuff that he had been wearing for the last 20 years, which I just find so charming.
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I think bootlegs are cool because the imperfections are what makes them super interesting. Bootleg isn’t the right word. I’m not a fan of direct copies of things because I think it’s actually immoral, but when people make customs and they add their own spin, like using the fabric or the iconography and re-imagining that, that’s what I find super interesting and very, very inspiring. I think people are constantly recycling history and recycling creative, and that’s just another iteration of that.
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When I first moved, my first job was at Opening Ceremony working in the e-commerce department. That’s when I was really thrust into the industry and became obsessed with fashion, to the point where it was so over-the-top. I was obsessed with Jacquemus. I would collect Jacquemus and wear the dresses every day. I was so involved in it. I was super passionate towards it, and as I continued living in New York, I feel like I went in reverse.
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Now my style is way more relaxed. I’ve realized that style is deeply personal in the way that you should be dressing for yourself and not for other people. So I’ll just wear stuff that I’m comfortable in. Everything that I’ve worn today, even like, the leather [look] is the most extreme I’ll get. I want to wear things I can live in and operate in. Also, working in fashion is surprisingly very, very hands-on. You do a lot of manual stuff, because if you’re not doing it, no one is, and you have to not have an ego. So now I wear the same sweatpants every single day, which I love.
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I love Uniqlo. I think it’s just easy clothes that you want to live your life in. I love t-shirts and sweatshirts and things that I can be warm and cozy in. A lot of the stuff that I had recently sold was all my fashion items. I had this crazy Balenciaga jacket, one of those big puffer jackets with the big scarf, and this crazy Martine Rose piece… It was all cool stuff. I’m getting to a point in my life where the things that I want to hold on to are the things that I truly want to continue wearing and that are such a part of my life. If they’re not functional, they’re useless. I don’t care about aesthetics as much anymore.
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I worked for Vans at the second store in Australia. It wasn’t the way Vans exists here, where it’s in malls. It was like a concept store, so they had all the collaborations and vaults. I was always obsessed with Vans, but they had another sneaker retail store where they had every sneaker brand, essentially. I learned a lot of product knowledge about sneakers working in a sneaker store, so I guess that’s where my interest kind of blossomed.
I became involved with Nike recently—I did a few projects with them. I’m not a sneaker purist. I can’t claim that at all, because there are people who live and breathe sneakers. One of my best friends actually is a sneaker collector, and he has storage containers just filled with shoes. He’s very, very careful with them. I wear them to death. Like Air Force 1s, I’ll wear to the point where they’re actually dead, because I’ll wear them every single day.
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A lot of sneaker-focused magazines were born in Australia, like Sneaker Freaker, which is an OG, super-important, acclaimed magazine.