In the BAG

Aussie expat Vanissa Antonious from cult footwear brand Neous on going solo and stepping up her accessory offering.

- Katrina Israel

It’s a Friday morning in London, a week or so before Boris Johnson’s government locks down the city amid the coronavirus pandemic. Like many businesses, Neous has already rolled out a working-from-home policy. “It’s been one thing after another,” reflects Neous’s founder and creative director, Vanissa Antonious, on WhatsApp. “I think it’s global karma.”

The former BAZAAR Australia stylist is speaking from her new leafy Stoke Newington apartment, having moved back to London from Berlin in February. “There’s so much talk that this is what the industry needed,” she says of the global lockdown’s impact on fashion’s peripatetic show cycle, “to make everyone realise that, actually, you don’t need to travel so much.”

Antonious is in the somewhat fortunate position of having already sold her pre and main A/W 2020 collections in Paris in January, but, like everyone else, she’s now praying those orders stick and, given Neous is proudly ‘made in Italy’, that she can also deliver. The 35-year-old did end up cancelling her March Paris fashion week showroom in favour of digital presentations to showcase her debut bag line to buyers.