Grace Lillian Lee, an indigenous Australian designer reinterprets her culture through a futuristic lens

Grace Lillian Lee’s woven artwear—akin to ceremonial totems and warrior armours—stands out at the India Art Fair. These sculpted dresses catch the eye for their form and colour, offering a glimpse of the indigenous culture of Australia. Lee, a Samsep, works at the intersection of contemporary art, fashion and living indigenous cultural practices. She is known for many firsts—for instance, in 2025, Lee became the first indigenous Australian woman to present independently at Couture Fashion Week in Paris. While in India, she is participating in a conversation, Dreaming in Thread, in collaboration with Raw Mango as well, to discuss cross-cultural exchanges between First Nations and South Asian creative traditions.

It is not difficult to connect with Lee’s practice, with its emphasis on weaving and intergenerational cultural wisdom—much like textile practices in India. Lee’s strongest memory of weaving harks back to the final year of fashion design at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Before that the designer hadn’t really connected with her own culture, even though she was surrounded by it in many ways. Her father, an artist, supported indigenous artists through his gallery. The culture of her community was omnipresent, but she hadn’t consciously unpacked it.

While in college, Lee started searching for a form and practice that she could understand more deeply. “And that led me to questions around identity,” she adds. Design school became a platform for questioning assumptions and thinking out of the box. It taught her how to create critically, and those tools later helped her reconnect with culture in a way that felt authentic and expansive. Meanwhile, she connected with Torres Strait Islander-artist, Dr Uncle Ken Thaiday Senior, which proved pivotal to her practice. “He taught me how to weave using coconut palm fronds, and that experience gave me an overwhelming sense of pride and strength,” elaborates Lee. “He encouraged me to continue and expand the practice through wearable adornment.” From that moment, the grasshopper weave was reimagined through her own lens—informed by her own understanding of textiles, drape, and fashion— becoming the foundation for her practice today.

Weaving has become a deeply mindful practice for her now. The hand movements, for instance, echo the legacy of her ancestors. To carry this tradition forward is deeply centering for Lee. “The act of weaving forces you to slow down—to be intentional, present, and mindful. It reconnects you to your hands, your body, and the knowledge held within them,” she says. Her works, such as The Winds of Guardian, combine the sculptural with the fantastical. “My practice honours cultural traditions while reinterpreting them through a futuristic lens,” adds Lee. She sees these body sculptures as warriors—powerful, larger-than-life, colourful and bold. They represent the human form, even when a human body is not physically present within them.

The materiality in her work has evolved with time. In earlier exhibitions, such as A Weave Through Time, which was acquired by Cairns Art Gallery, Lee explored palm fronds alongside plastic and cotton, showing how weaving could exist across different fabrications. Over time, she has worked with leather, plastic, cotton, silk, and more recently bonded lycra. “The lycra allowed for lightness and movement, and was used in collaboration with the Weaving Collective for Flora, created for the Australian Ballet x Bangarra collaboration. Each material shift reflects a new stage of exploration within my practice,” explains Lee.

Just like Dr Uncle Ken Thaiday Senior proved to be a key figure in her practice, she too is trying to impart mentorship to the next generation of indigenous designers through the Weaving Collective. “As the founder of First Nations Fashion + Design (FNFD), I’m also committed to growing the sector more broadly. Sharing knowledge, supporting others, and creating pathways is central to how I work and how I run my businesses,” she adds.