Martin Grant (b. 1967), fashion designer, has worked for nearly thirty years in Paris. Grant grew up in Nunawading, Victoria, leaving school at 15 to work with a Melbourne evening wear designer and establish his own label. After studying sculpture at the Victorian College of the Arts, he left Australia in 1990, working as a dressmaker in London before moving to Paris the following year. There, over the next decade, he managed to build a successful ready-to-wear business, opening his own boutique on the Rue des Rosiers. In 1999 he attracted the attention of US fashion authority André Leon Talley, who persuaded Naomi Campbell to model for him for nothing. Since then he has presented collections in the main Paris shows, though he has remained true to his description in a 2003 Newsweek piece as ‘fashion’s quiet man’. There is only one Martin Grant boutique, at 10 rue Charlot, Paris, but his elegant signature line – newly including menswear - is stocked by top-end boutiques in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia. Devotees of his superbly cut, tasteful clothes include Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Emma Stone and the Duchess of Sussex. The National Gallery of Victoria exhibited Grant’s designs in Martin Grant, Paris in 2005-2006. In 2014 Qantas unveiled its Martin Grant-designed uniform in black, red and fuchsia pink.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2006
© Julian Kingma
Julian Kingma (6 portraits)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Penelope Grist explores the photographic instinct of four-time National Photographic Portrait Prize finalist Julian Kingma.
Photographer Julian Kingma describes his style of quiet portraiture that captures the spaces in between big gestures.
