Adelaide-born designer Stavroula Adameitis is a creator of bespoke pieces that she describes as ‘wearable art.’
Under the business name – Frida Las Vegas – Stavroula has created a multi-function studio in her hometown after living in Sydney for 14 years.
Not only does Stavroula design textiles and bespoke pieces but she also holds drawing and design workshops for the public who are interested in textile design.
“I design everything from the prints on the garments, to the custom-built furniture in the space, and even the murals on the walls,” Stavroula said.
“The Frida Las Vegas Art Fashion studio is a multi-function space where I physically design my prints, welcome customers who are able to try on garments in person and commission bespoke pieces.
“Everything is created to send a clear, coherent message of colour, positivity, and humour. My job is to create a world people can play in that is infinitely more fun and fabulous than the world we actually live in.”
She has interned in New York with renown Sex and the City stylist Patricia Field, collaborated with cultural institutions Sydney Opera House, Art Gallery of SA, Powerhouse Museum and Adelaide’s Jam Factory. Global brands, Adobe, Meta, Disney, Microsoft, and Australian designer Peter Alexander have also commissioned Stavroula to design.
One of her more famous clients was Katy Perry who wore an outfit on American Idol that was created from a custom textile print Stavroula designed.
The self-described ‘time-traveller’ is influenced by popular culture of the last century, and students of pop-art icon Andy Warhol, including artist Jeff Koons, film director Pedro Almodovar and fashion designer Franco Moschino.
“I live to time-travel through my work and explore recollections of popular culture growing up in the late 1980s and early 1990s – a time before the advent of the internet when super-saturated and often humorous graphics permeated visual culture,” she said.
“I am constantly striving to create work that uses the aesthetics of the past to foster engagement in the present and inspire optimism about the future.”
As a youngster, Stavroula loved dressing up to express herself through clothes and jewellery, admired the cream brick homes with plaster lions, visiting the local milk bar and looking for inspiration from performers – the B52s and George Michael – as she drew designs.
“My style has remained fairly consistent over the years and is rooted in my memories growing up at the tail end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, when ‘bigger’ was ‘better’ in fashion and popular culture,” she said.
“Going to Greek weddings throughout the 1990s was a better source of fashion inspiration than 100 Australian Fashion Weeks combined.”
While Stavroula likes to wear her own designs, she also collects vintage pieces from the 1980s and 1990s by European designers such as Thierry Mugler and Franco Moschino.
“I also love wearing vintage Australian designers like Teena Varigos who really knew how to combine 1940s silhouettes with 1980s textile prints to spectacular effect,” she said.
Stavroula credits her beloved yiayia Angeloutha as one of her ‘biggest and most enduring inspirations’ who at 93 years young has an eye for fashion and style and is the muse for her latest design.
“I am currently working on a cabana shirt and short set that references Greek and Italian icons straight from the saloni or ‘good room’,’’ she said.
“I illustrated her pink fluffy slippers for the print.
“It’s funny how everyone’s yiayia and nonna wears the exact same slippers – they are iconic, in a subtle yet instantly recognisable way.”
Her other inspiration is her dad, Jim Mountzouris, who co-formed an Australian band in the early 1980s called Vertical Hold with her nouno Mick Michalopoulos.
“Dad also worked as an architect and had a never-ending supply of pencils and large-format plan paper lying around the house, which I picked up and spent hours drawing with as a kid,” she said.
“I didn’t realise it at the time, but Dad’s passion for music transferred to me as a love for visual and pop culture.”
Stavroula describes her Adelaide Arcade studio as complementing the other boutique type businesses that offer ‘out-of-the-box products and services.’
Her Greek background, she said, influences and inspires her work when exploring Greek icons and symbols to use on her prints.
“I think Greek culture, similar to other mediterranean cultures, celebrates unashamed glamour with a deep respect for an over-the-top aesthetic,” Stavroula said.
“When I am in Greece, I never feel more Australian and yet in my every day Australian life, I feel very Greek in the way I choose to express myself.
“It’s a paradox that provides more questions than answers, but regardless I wear the duality of my cultural upbringing with pride.”
