Leith Groves

My name is Leith Groves. I was the founder of Varga Girl, a retail fashion store that supported and showcased both local and international designers. I first met Aurelio at the beginning of my career. We were sort of brother and sister in the fashion industry is how we described ourselves from, you know, styling, designing windows, shows, and that's how I know him.

So the Art Gallery of Western Australia asked Robert Marshall and myself to curate and reopen the design store as a new design-focused retail space. And Aurelio was actually our very first collaboration which made it really special. The idea of bringing together Aurelio as an artist and fashion designer with a scarf as a canvas felt like a perfect collaboration. It was a beautiful way to celebrate a significant West Australian fashion artist and bring his work into the design store. We really wanted to give Aurelio creative freedom and let him lead with the designs and we trusted the artistic vision and allowed him to express himself through the scarves.

I then styled the scarves at the end in our campaign and the celebration of the collaboration, which was really a beautiful moment and it felt like a lovely coming together of fashion, art, friendship and the West Australian creativity. I remember being in my car and seeing a bus go past with this whole image of his scarf going down with the bus, which I loved. That's something I always remember and still think about often.

He's a fashion designer, an artist. He's everything. And fashion is art. Everyone relates to Aurelio. He was the fashion warrior, like almost a leader for Perth creatives. and I think everyone has a story, whether it was a wedding dress or going into his shop or a ball dress or their mum or their aunty or, you know, him being in the newspaper.

Everyone knows him or loves him or has a story, so everyone seems to connect.