I was born in Paddington, Sydney, Australia. My parents are Maltese and immigrated to Australia when they were children. I grew up in the suburbs, have a brother and a sister, two nieces, a great niece and three god children.
I’m an Aquarian and my favorite number is eight. When I finished my HSC I bummed around for a few years, went to clubs, explored the city and moved out of home. I met fashion people, models and photographers, and produced and styled fashion shows for night clubs. I always loved fashion, bought magazines, made my own clothes and did runway shows in my bedroom to loud music. I started styling after being asked to help out a photographer on a shoot.
The rest is history, well lots of hard work and passion.
I soon had an agent in Sydney and started styling for independent magazines, got a better agent and bigger jobs and did my first major editorials for Vogue Australia when I was 21. It was on an island in northern NSW, an American art director who came down under to work at Vogue booked me, my big break I guess, cheers Eric. I wanted to live and work in New York, and I did, with $1000, and ended up there for 8 years styling for Conde Nast, Emporio Armani, Tommy Hilfiger, L’Oreal, Covergirl, Nieman Marcus… Through jobs for Vanity Fair I met lots of celebrities that I ended up working with; Puff Daddy, Sigourney Weaver, Hugh Grant. Bjork, Mick Jagger and Scarlet Johansson… I went to the shows in Europe, Cannes film festival’s in France and all the swish do’s in NYC. I was really up for it and had loads of fun.
September 11 freaked me out and I moved back to OZ.
I never thought I would move back, and I love it. I was amazed at the inspiration here that was not realized.
I found Australia very inspiring and celebrated it in all my work, people thought I was mad, and before I knew it other people did too. I worked for Vogue, again, and then started my own tome MARK, mainly out of creative frustration. I produced three of them, the last one was inspired by Perth, a city in Western Australia, and with photographer and artist Justin Smith and Shane Sakkeus it was probably the best work I have ever done to date. During this time I also worked with Australian designers Toni Maticevski, Josh Goot and Tina Kalivas. I re launched the 80’s magazine Follow, as the editor, which was amazing. After that I moved onto Harpers Bazaar, as style director. There I styled Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts, Dita Von Teese and other cool people. I was ready for a new challenge so I took on the position of fashion director to launch Grazia magazine, a weekly fashion mag. that kept me busy and out of trouble, well most of the time.
In between working full-time I always continued to explore my individual creative interests and out-lets. 2 years ago I came up with a concept for a fashion comic, I have always loved comics and superhero’s. It’s called Petit Mal. I love it and work with 2 amazing art directors, Shane Sakkeus and Johnathan Zawada, who make absolute magic with it. Lots of people over seas seem to love it too. Now I am involved in a broad spectrum of creative and business projects! I am a creative director and consultant and style for magazines and advertising jobs. I also provide direction on areas from fashion and music to culture and real estate. I am energized and inspired by new talent; designers, models, photographers, artists, stylists… I love to discover and nurture, share my knowledge and make them famous. My core inspirations are comic books, super hero’s, sex fetishes, sport, outer space, the beach, and seventies, eighties and nineties glamour. I am a visual person.