By NICOLE VALICEK
A LOCAL clothing designer is making big waves in the street wear scene with his first range of trendy threads.
For Luke Pond, who grew up in Laverton, creativity had always been a big part of his life by way of music, art and painting.
But it wasn’t until he had hit a slump in his art work and experienced an unsuccessful attempt to invest in a clothing label that Flavor Lane was born.
“After a trip to Byron Bay I realised that I did want to do it for myself and started playing around with a few different styles of sayings come up with the idea of Flavour Lane.”
“I did a couple of trips last year you come back and realise I don’t want to do work anymore and that whole easy going hippy lifestyle takes a hold.”
His label Flavor Lane created in 2012 tries to capture the “hippy-life” style he experienced in Byron Bay and that “takes a hold”.
It includes trendy tie-dyed T-shirts that represents ’60s tie-dye trends infused with edgy, modern artwork and is already being noticed in the indie streetwear scene.
“Flavor Lane is a rendition of someone that’s outgoing and who doesn’t really care what the outside world sees of them,” Luke said.
“They’re the type of people that don’t want to see themselves walking down the street in generic labels and brands.”
Each piece is individually hand-dyed by Luke from his home.
The result is one-off designs on every shirt.
His hard work is paying off as illustrated by the fact Flavor Lane is already available is retail stores in South Melbourne and Brunswick St, Fitzroy, with more stores to be named.
And the 26-year-old is already seeing the fruit of labour with his original T-shirt designs worn by a number of famous faces including Australian rapper 360 and Australians R&B artists Danny Merriweather.
“To have people other than your friends tag you in a post say at Flavour Lane (and say) look who’s wearing your shirt. It’s a huge. It’s a massive high.”
Luke said his ultimate goal is to quit his day job, get his own creative space and pursue his dream of designing full time.
For more information visit www.facebook.com/FlavorLane
