The Koorie Heritage Trust will present Treading Lightly, a major fashion and textiles exhibition, in March; showcasing more than 38 remarkable garments, textile works alongside beautifully crafted accessories by seven First Nations artists and designers based in Victoria.

Treading Lightly marks the fifth iteration of the Trust's ground-breaking Blak Design program. Through intensive mentoring and studio-based learning at RMIT University's School of Fashion and Textiles, Blak Design is the only program of its kind in Australia supporting Indigenous creativity, entrepreneurship and cultural expression.

The exhibition offers an insight into contemporary First Peoples fashion and textile practice in south-eastern Australia. The designers embed personal narratives, cultural memory and deep connections to Country into each work, honouring lineage while speaking confidently to the present.

Treading Lightly features work ranging from hand-dyed garments and plant-based textiles to 3D-printed accessories, woven elements, repurposed materials and possum-skin garments. Together, the works articulate fashion as a living cultural practice - one that remembers, resists and renews.

Artist Clinton Hayden. (Image: Instagram @clintonhayden)

The 2025 Blak Design cohort includes Vicki Burgess (Moonbird People); Kylie Colemane (Darug, Wiradjuri); Bianca Easton (Boon Wurrung); Clinton Hayden (Wiradjuri); Jasmine-Skye Marinos (Arrernte, Luritja, Pitjantjatjara, Kaytej, Warumungu, Pitta Pitta); Luke Morgan (Yorta Yorta, Wiradjuri, Baraba Baraba / Barapa Barapa); and Megan Paine (Kuku Yalanji).

Each of the participants came with vastly different experience and backgrounds. Mentors brought their experience together to guide and harness the many ideas each brought to the program. Mentors include celebrated artist Dr Christian Thompson AO (Bidjara); Kate Reynolds (Associate Lecturer, School of Fashion and Textiles, RMIT); and Yashna Seethiah (Studio Technician, School of Fashion and Textiles, RMIT).

"Blak Design was really expansive. It was set out to support everyone and their individual needs, but also for us to all come together to be inspired by each other," said Paine.

"It was really cool to look around the room at my peers and see such different pieces from everyone, a huge variety of ideas, and to see how they manifested so individually for everyone."

Throughout the program, sustainability is approached not as trend, but as custodial responsibility, through respectful material use, resourcefulness, adaptability and deep listening to Country.

Dr Thompson said these works form a chorus of practices grounded not only Country but memory, and respect.

"These works form a chorus of practices grounded in Country, memory, and respect. They remind us that sustainability is not merely a contemporary goal but an ancient principle - one that has guided First Nations cultures for millennia," he said.

"Each designer brings forward an understanding that to make is to care - for land, for ancestors, for future generations.

"The exhibition becomes not just a celebration of design but a call to realign our ways of living, urging us to tread lightly, listen deeply, and recognise that every material has a story if we choose to honour it - an invitation to move through the world with greater gentleness and intention."

A fully illustrated exhibition catalogue documents the designers' journeys in their own voices, alongside reflections from mentors of the program.

Koorie Heritage Trust chief executive Tom Mosby said since the Blak Design program launch in 2021, it has supported 47 participants in their creative practice.

"Since its launch in 2021, the Blak Design program has supported 47 participants in their creative practice, strengthen commercial capability, and build enduring professional networks across the design sector," he said.

The Blak Design program is proudly supported by the Ian Potter Foundation and RMIT University. The Treading Lightly exhibition is proudly supported by Creative Victoria, City of Melbourne, Creative Australia, Indigenous Visual Arts Industry Support, ANZ Bank and Viva Energy Australia.

Treading Lightly, Saturday 7th March - Sunday 17th May 2026 at the Koorie Heritage Trust, Birrarung Building, Fed Square.