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<\/p>\nMelbourne fashion designer Rochelle Gregory found success in 2018 when one of her custom-designed leather jackets was worn by actress Ruby Rose in a cosmetics billboard campaign.<\/p>\n
The moment marked a career gear shift for Gregory, but as her sartorial narrative soared a mental health unravelling almost derailed her.<\/p>\n
Now the rock ‘n’ roll-inspired designer, who has clothed the likes of Gigi Hadid, Dua Lipa, Hailey Bieber and Paris Hilton, has created a short film to tell her story.<\/p>\n
Gregory was inspired to sew from a young age, all thanks to her Greek grandfather who worked as a tailor and kept his industrial machine at the front of his house.<\/p>\n
That fashion love language was in her blood, and one she wanted to continue.<\/p>\n
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Rochelle Gregory threw herself into her work while also facing her own inner demons. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
After graduating from the Whitehouse Institute of Design in 2014, she applied for an internship at Alexander Wang’s studio in New York but missed out.<\/p>\n
She took the loss in her stride and started her independent label, Rocky Rafaela, in 2016.<\/p>\n
The brand, built around custom pieces, edgy shirting, dance floor-bound dresses and ready-to-wear jackets made from sustainable leather and silk, proved the perfect distraction for Gregory, who was trying to work through multiple mental health diagnoses, from borderline personality disorder to depression.<\/p>\n
For a period, the world was Gregory’s oyster; she even had a bricks-and-mortar store in Albert Park \u2014 a stone’s throw from where she grew up. It has since closed and business is via an online portal now.<\/p>\n
Confronting demons<\/p>\n
Recently, a decade after launching the label, she hosted a self-funded runway show as part of Melbourne Fashion Week to declare she was back with a new collection and a story to share.<\/p>\n
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The new collection from Rocky Rafaela debuted at Melbourne Fashion Week, accompanied by a short film about Gregory’s struggle to regain her mental health. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
Accompanying the runway show was the screening of a 12-minute film that was no ordinary pastiche of stills to ignite the pace of the night. Instead, Gregory was the star of the show; re-enacting her bouts of hospitalisation, self-harm, suicidal ideation and navigating her world of bulimia and anorexia.<\/p>\n
If you or anyone you know needs help:Lifeline<\/a>\u00a0on 13 11 14Kids Helpline<\/a>\u00a0on 1800 551 800MensLine Australia<\/a>\u00a0on 1300 789 978Suicide Call Back Service<\/a>\u00a0on 1300 659 467Beyond Blue<\/a>\u00a0on 1300 224 636 or its COVID-19 support service\u00a01800 512\u00a0348Headspace<\/a>\u00a0on 1800 650 890ReachOut<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0au.reachout.com<\/a>Care Leavers Australasia Network (CLAN)<\/a>\u00a0on 1800 008 774Brother to Brother<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a01800 435 799<\/p>\n The message was one of struggle, but ultimately of finding hope and a greater sense of self-worth.<\/p>\n “I turned to fashion as a distraction, a place I could hide from the truth. But eventually I had to confront my demons head-on,” Gregory says.<\/p>\n She is now working as an ambassador with Lifeline, including working on a T-shirt collaboration to help them raise money in a campaign launching later this year.<\/p>\n “I had some childhood trauma occur that affected my adult life including learning and impulse control,” says Gregory, who says she first attempted to take her life at 17.<\/p>\n “I turned on myself, became very destructive, got involved in drugs and alcohol. It took years of therapy to navigate all of this.<\/p>\n “I ended up seeing a life coach for five hours a day after a suicide attempt and after a few hospital stays.”<\/p>\n Stitching a new story<\/p>\n She uses her fashion garments, her art, like armour; as a place to escape.<\/p>\n Rocky Rafaela was built on a renegade approach to design. (Supplied)<\/p>\n “I turned pain into power and have never been one to follow trends. My fashion has always been about a lived experience,” she says.<\/p>\n Gregory, who got sober two and a half years ago, says sobriety has also helped her remain focused on her wellbeing.<\/p>\n “My mental health journey was really up and down because when I wasn’t Rocky Rafaela, I struggled with who I was,” she says.<\/p>\n “The brand gave me purpose, power and I was having huge successes, but I was still ending up in rehab because I hadn’t healed a huge part of Rochelle Gregory,” she says.<\/p>\n “Rocky Rafaela was this powerful boss lady who just got herself in the most craziest of places, from the Hadid’s house to billboards, but I had to work on my own foundations,” she says.<\/p>\n Making a short film about her life, with the help of director Nick Kozakis, has been part of the healing process.<\/p>\n Loading…<\/p>\n It’s one she hopes can inspire others going through similar pain to find a way to navigate the depths of theirs.<\/p>\n “I wanted to take people on a journey of my life and show them that while my life started out quite dark, I have transformed it into light and who I am today,” she says.<\/p>\n In the short film, Gregory adjusts the final touches on a dress she is designing.<\/p>\n There’s an emphatic line charged with defiance when a journalist says “what a success story”, to which Gregory replies: “I am just getting started.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne fashion designer Rochelle Gregory found success in 2018 when one of her custom-designed leather jackets was worn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,196201,134,140260,514,326609,326608],"class_list":["post-677626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-fashion-week","tag-entertainment","tag-melbourne-fashion-week","tag-mental-health","tag-rochelle-gregory","tag-rocky-rafaela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1b48bb5e9fa7a9bde3a7286c9fbeb46a.jpeg\")
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