The Politics of Flowers
Image credit: Designs by Nicol & Ford displayed at Elizabeth Bay House. Photo © Joshua Morris for Museums of History NSW
For its fifth consecutive presentation at Australian Fashion Week, Nicol & Ford turned its research-driven gaze towards one of Australia's most overlooked artistic figures: Adrian Feint (1894–1971), painter, designer, tastemaker and creator of whimsical visual worlds. Long eclipsed in Australian art history, Feint's imaginative breadth, refined artistry and relationships with influential society women form the foundation of the duo's 2026 collection, FEINT.
Presented at Elizabeth Bay House and now extended through the exhibition Treading Feintly, the project explores queer identity, artistic patronage and cultural memory, transforming meticulous archival research into a richly layered fashion narrative.
VAULT spoke with Lil and Katie from Nicol & Ford about recovering overlooked histories, the intersections of art and fashion, and why Feint's life and work continue to resonate today.
What first drew you to the work and life of Adrian Feint, and why did his practice feel relevant to revisit now?
We were initially drawn to the quiet, coded queer sensibility running through Feint’s world – something subtle, elegant, and just a little bit elusive. His work feels like a more restrained take on Australian camp, where everything is beautifully composed on the surface, but there’s a sense of something more personal just beneath it. The still lifes he’s best known for are so carefully controlled, yet the longer you spend with them – and the more you look into his lesser-known works, the more they begin to hint at an inner emotional world. That sense of tension felt so intriguing to us. Developing this collection reflects an ongoing interest in surfacing queer figures of Australian history who helped shape Australian visual culture, but who haven’t always been given a central place in its story. There’s a growing desire to revisit those kinds of histories and to think about what’s been softened, edited out, or simply overlooked. In a way, we hope to introduce a contemporary audience to a more complex and multidimensional understanding of our shared queer history.
Feint occupied multiple creative worlds — painting, interior design, illustration and decorative arts. How did this interdisciplinary approach shape the construction of the collection?
Feint’s career first gained attention through his illustrations for Home magazine, an influential exponent of modernism in the early 20th century in Australia. He then became best known for his Bookplates, for which he developed woodblock prints commissioned by wealthy clients. He additionally contributed to the famous 1929 Burdekin House Exhibition, which introduced European modernist interiors to the Australian public. While these many talents illustrate the reach of Adrian Feint’s artistic output, in designing the collection, we were principally interested in Feint’s oil paintings, which became his preferred focus from 1928, as they demonstrate a tension between his private and public life, and the façade which protected his interior world while also acting as a vehicle for self-expression.
The collection speaks about “rewriting history.” How do you approach fashion as a tool for recovering overlooked or erased creative figures?
Fashion, and clothing more broadly, is such an immediate and human form of self-expression, with the ability to carry emotion, fantasy and narrative all at once. That makes it a powerful way to connect histories with contemporary audiences. With Feint, we were not trying to reconstruct a single, fixed narrative, but bring his life and work back into view while also acknowledging what remains unknown or unspoken. We are drawn to the idea of clothing as a kind of living archive, something that not only recovers a history, but gives it new life. The bodies that inhabit the collection are part of that, too. Our casting celebrates the visibility and freedom of contemporary queer experience, acknowledging how restrained queer expression needed to be in Feint’s time.
Image credit:Designs by Nicol & Ford displayed at Elizabeth Bay House. Photo © Joshua Morris for Museums of History NSW
Feint’s work often balanced refinement with fantasy and surrealism. How did you translate that tension into silhouette, fabrication and movement?
In developing this collection we had a lot of fun finding the balance between historical fashion silhouettes from the 1950s and 60s to speak to the society in which Feint circulated, and then dive deep into the surrealist undertones of his work through material exploration and form – best exemplified through the floating wrapped ribbon, shell and flower bust cups, and hand-poured silicone pieces which imitated the surface texture of hand-blown Murano glass. Each of these elements together is intended to create a tapestry of Feint’s outer and inner life, moving from the exterior façade of high society into his expressive inner world, focused on unnerving and surreal subjects. Movement is always key to our work, in that a garment is just an object until it comes to life on a body, and that is why showing our work in a runway format remains central to our practice.
You were able to borrow work from some private collectors for this show. Tell us about finding these rare beauties!
It’s quite a story. In the month leading up to the exhibition, we had been in conversation with an institution about formally loaning several Feint works for the runway and exhibition. Three weeks out, we received the difficult news that, due to time and financial constraints, this would not be possible. It was a real blow, and we reluctantly began to accept that this part of the vision might not happen. Then, just ten days before the runway, everything changed. In a conversation with the University of Sydney’s Dean of Arts and Social Sciences, Professor Lisa Adkins, we discovered that she and her partner, Professor Maryanne Dever, live in Darnley Hall in Elizabeth Bay, the building where Feint spent much of his life. Even more incredibly, they are passionate Feint collectors themselves.
Once we shared the scope of the project, Lisa not only offered works from her own collection, but also generously helped connect us with other collectors, including Professor Peter McNeill and Chevalier Yves Hernot de Coatmenec. One by one, they agreed to loan works from their private collections, straight off the walls of their homes, for the runway and exhibition. We were absolutely overjoyed to be able to share these pieces with audiences. This rollercoaster process also felt fitting. In Feint’s own lifetime, a close circle of private collectors played a vital role in supporting his work. This experience echoed that same spirit of generosity and care and became a meaningful tribute to the community that sustained his practice.
Can you talk about the decision to reference flowers historically used as symbols of persecution against queer communities, and how those meanings shift when reclaimed through fashion?
Floriography has always operated as a coded language, and historically, some of those codes have been weaponised. Our designs included reference to the green carnation, representing the persecution of Oscar Wilde, the use of the words “pansy”, “daisy” and “buttercup” – each used as slurs against queer men in the early 20th century – and the government and social censorship of queer lives through the “lavender craze” of the 1920s and “Pansy Craze” of McCarthy’s government in America. All of this symbolism, association and fear is intrinsically tied to flowers, and through Feint’s still life subjects offered an opportunity to reclaim these complex histories of persecution. While “florals for spring” appear to be an obvious subject in fashion design, we wanted to interrogate his floral arrangements with more substance. That shift from concealment to visibility allows them to be read differently, not as markers of shame or exclusion, but as complex emblems of survival, intimacy, and self-definition.
Your collections are always deeply research-driven. What did your archival process for Feint uncover that surprised or moved you most?
Two journeys of archival research jump out as especially wonderful moments throughout this process. The first was our afternoon at the Mitchell Library (State Library of New South Wales), where we had the opportunity to sit with and study Feint’s own handwritten ledger of paintings kept chronologically and in meticulous detail across two volumes. These ledgers not only included the dimensions, materials, titles and exhibition history of each painting (over 1000 works!), but also detailed their price of sale and the buyer. This process led us down a rabbit hole in which we could identify key collectors and patrons, as well as friends and lovers to whom he gifted works each year. It felt very personal and insightful into the strong network that underpinned his practice. Our second discovery, which we stumbled upon through an Australian Financial Review article from October 1987, reveals that the flowers painted by Feint throughout his career were, in fact, grown by his long-term partner, John Winter. Winter owned a family property in Mittagong, at which Feint kept an artist studio, with the hibiscus and azaleas so prominent in his works were grown by his loving partner around the homestead. This felt like such an intimate detail that imbued so much more meaning to what appeared to be cut flowers. Each painting suddenly became evidence of their love, hiding in plain sight!
Image credit: Designs by Nicol & Ford displayed at Elizabeth Bay House. Photo © Joshua Morris for Museums of History NSW
The collaboration with painter Natasha Walsh introduces another artistic voice into the collection. How did her painterly language intersect with your interpretation of Feint?
We were fortunate enough to sit for a painting by the wonderful Natasha Walsh in 2023 for the Archibald, which developed a gorgeous friendship that we both cherish. When developing the design language for FEINT, we approached Natasha to hand-paint garments as canvases, exploring scale, colour and texture through several different finishes. Consistent across each painting was Natasha’s use of oil paints, which would be considered unusual for use in textiles and fashion. However, we wanted to remain true to the technique and rich tonal depth of Feint’s paintings and were absolutely thrilled with the outcome. It was so wonderful collaborating with Natasha across these 6 pieces, which created a new visual language and interpretation playing with scale rather than replicating his work, and we both learnt so much about her technical mastery through the process – a delight!
Presenting the runway at Elizabeth Bay House adds another historical layer to the project. How did the architecture and social history of the site shape the collection or presentation?
It was the additional lens of presenting the collection at Elizabeth Bay House which enabled us to celebrate his contribution to interior design and decorative arts through in tandem surfacing the bohemian history of the colonial mansion in the early 20th Century, when it served as artist’s live in studios under private ownership. Additionally, after entering the National Trust in 1961, in the 1970s the exuberant interior designer Leslie Walford AM (1927-2012) was commissioned to design the interiors of the house for its transformation into a Museum. The decisions made in this process, since removed to restore its Georgian character, speak to the close link between interior design and queer sensibilities in their ability to construct worlds of rich history, texture and escapism. Elizabeth Bay House is inherently theatrical, but it’s also embedded in histories of wealth and colonial power. That duality was important. The presentation leaned into the house as both backdrop and subject — allowing the garments to sit within that environment, but also to subtly interrupt it and “queer” the space.
The collection pays tribute to the society women who supported Feint while also interrogating the colonial structures surrounding them. How did you navigate that balance between homage and critique?
The collectors and patrons of Feints practice are quite literally the only reason his work is represented in institutional collections today. For more than two decades, high-society tastemakers across Australia saw owning a Feint as fashionable, even as the wider art world and major institutions dismissed his still lifes as decorative and tied to feminine, domestic pursuits. Much of his presence in public collections today is thanks to the vision of these women to bequeath their private collections to public institutions, ensuring that Feint’s work would be appreciated into the future.
Considering this patronage model also revealed a persistent duality of discomfort. In a world where homosexuality remained criminalised, Feint and his partner occupied a carefully managed visibility: welcomed into elite circles as bohemian curiosities, their presence helping to frame society women as cultured and cosmopolitan. Yet this apparent inclusion was always conditional. The social ecosystem depended on strict adherence to unspoken codes of respectability, where difference could be displayed but only within acceptable bounds. For the sake of his career, Feint moved within these circles throughout his life—esteemed, even celebrated, but always as a guest who enhanced the host’s cultural capital, never fully belonging, always marked as an outsider. There is a suite of looks in the collection which unravel and deconstruct 1960s silhouettes, which aimed to explore the discomfort of artists who participate in the façade required by this transactional dance.
Nicol & Ford often explore queer visibility and cultural memory. Do you see Feint as an act of historical correction, speculative storytelling, or something else entirely?
What a fabulous way to frame this question! We believe our work can aim to achieve both of these objectives and acknowledge that while we “exhume” figures of the past to celebrate, dissect and revisit their work and lives, there will always be conjecture and artistic license which colours our interpretation of the subject.
Our experience with our 2024 Australian Fashion Week collection THORN, where “The Witch of Kings Cross” Rosaleen Norton was the focus, demonstrated that bringing renewed attention to these figures can spark further interest beyond our own work. Ideally, it encourages more research, new interpretations, and broader recognition over time. In Feint’s case, there’s still more to be done. Despite the number of his works held in public and private collections, he hasn’t yet been the subject of a major institutional survey. It would be exciting to see that happen in the coming years, as a way of deepening understanding and appreciation of his practice.
Image credit: Designs by Nicol & Ford displayed at Elizabeth Bay House. Photo © Joshua Morris for Museums of History NSW
Treading Feintly offer a chance to see the garments in the form of an exhibition. How does your thinking change when fashion moves from the runway into the museum space?
We absolutely love presenting our work in a runway format, allowing bodies to move through space and perform histories into garments. However, these presentations can feel so brief – often 12 - 15 minutes at most, and we love that an exhibition display can provide an opportunity for slower contemplation and appreciation of design, form and technique. Additionally, we love that we have the opportunity to further develop the narrative which underpins our decision to show the collection in Elizabeth Bay House, surfacing links between the Feint narrative and furniture, decorative arts and architecture within the Museum. It has also been wonderful to share Feint with a larger and broader audience beyond the limited and industry-focused runway audience, and we are so pleased that the exhibition is free for anyone to go and experience.
Treading Feintly is at Elizabeth Bay House at 7 Onslow Avenue, Elizabeth Bay, Sydney, until July 13, 2026.
Thursday, June 25, Adrian Feint Revisited: In Conversation with Nicol & Ford
Sunday, July 5, Date Night Studio floral arranging workshop – bookings essential.
