Alex and Georgie Cleary: 5 Stories on Creative Collaboration

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH OCULA MAGAZINE

The siblings behind Australian fashion label Alpha60 reflect on working with Patricia Piccinini and Brendan Huntley, and introduce their latest project for Melbourne Art Fair.

Siblings Alex and Georgie Cleary are ‘hustlers since way back’.

The duo’s working relationship began on their parent’s rose farm, where they sold flowers together on the side of the road—an enterprise which expanded to selling tea towels, potpourri, muffins, and later champagne, skateboards, and t-shirts at the local market.

With past careers in graphic design (Georgie) and aeronautical engineering (Alex), their fashion label Alpha60 emerged organically over time, beginning when Georgie made Alex a printed t-shirt to go out in one night when he had nothing to wear. The shirt was soon requested by growing numbers of friends, and from there the brand grew. ‘We just made stuff that we liked, and that’s still what we do,’ Georgie said.

For Melbourne Art Fair 2024, they are presenting two PROJECT ROOMS with Firstdraft, a non-profit contemporary art space in Gadigal Country/Sydney, and Gertrude, an artist studio programme in Naarm/Melbourne, as well as their own booth where they will launch three new bag designs—the product of their latest collaborations with Australian artists Mikala Dwyer, Lottie Consalvo, and Kate Rohde.

Alex and Georgie recently spoke with the team at Ocula about collecting, previous collaborations, and their current project for Melbourne Art Fair 2024.

“GC: Funnily enough, we’ve collected a lot of things that are exactly the same—from the same artist, same gallery, same exhibition. It’s funny because our houses are so different, but we’ve got a lot of the same art.”

Click to read the full interview on Ocula Magazine.