Poppy Lissiman on creativity, determination, new styles at her Fremantle pop-up & returning to clothing design

Everything about Poppy Lissiman is a little left of centre. Whether it’s her eponymous label’s daring sunglasses or eye-catching bags, coveted by the world’s biggest celebrities, the pompom-adorned alpaca that attended her wedding, or her unique personal style, Perth’s queen of cool is eclectic to her core — and she’s built an international brand on it. Over almost 20 years, Lissiman has grown her business from a small start-up selling her hand-sewn dresses (then later, in 2014, a disastrous first sunglasses range) to an accessories powerhouse, adorning runways, the pages of prestigious fashion magazines and the outfits of A-listers such as Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Paris Hilton, Justin Bieber, Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid. But how does she stay ahead of the zeitgeist? What allows her to nail an aesthetic before buyers even know they want it? How does she distil her style savvy into accessories that stand out in a crowded market? For Lissiman, it’s an intuitive process, guided by gut instinct, her own ever-evolving creative obsessions — and a good dose of business acumen. “I have always designed pieces which I would personally want to wear, so most of the time I’m just thinking of things which spark joy in me,” Lissiman says, sitting down with STM after a special shoot to mark her return to Perth for her first pop-up shop in six years. “I get an enormous amount of inspiration from other avenues outside of fashion such as art and movies. I’ve always loved collecting books, particularly design books. Living in Japan certainly turbocharged this obsession,” she says, as evidenced by the racks of titles in her Fremantle headquarters and her personal library of rare and discontinued editions. Lissiman returned to live in Australia (she’s based in Sydney) in August feeling invigorated by Japan’s energy, after spending two and a half years in Tokyo with her husband, marketing maverick Harrison Kennedy, when he was given a transfer. It inspired her in many ways, including to branch into keychains and bag charms, as well as a bag she is excited to release early next year, based on a style of Japanese student bookbag that she saw teenagers carrying on the trains. Some of her new unreleased styles will be available at the pop-up, guaranteed to create a buzz of anticipation among fashion fans. She’s also revealed she is planning a return to clothing design with a line of kaftans, after a decade doing only accessories. It seems fitting to explore Lissiman’s journey in WA’s best-read glossy magazine — some of her most cherished memories are of “devouring” her mother’s fashion magazines as a child. She still hunts for them wherever she finds herself in the world, including in the vast libraries of the Japanese capital. “In terms of living (in Japan) and how it influenced my perspective on fashion and design, what immediately comes to mind was access to enormous amounts of archives and vintage,” she says. “A lot of designers go to Japan for research and development trips and I can see why. I would spend a lot of time looking for vintage design books, going to libraries to review archives of old fashion and design magazines.” Lissiman believes she was destined to end up in Japan, having spent her formative years enamoured with Japanese anime and manga and studying the language at school. Lissiman and Kennedy soaked up as much of the country as they could; they sought the best spots to score vintage kimonos, discovered techno dive bars, visited Naoshima art island, ate crunchy gyoza in Shibuya, watched sumo wrestlers battle in the ring (dohyo) and sipped natural wine in Ginza. Flooded with social media messages asking for tips, the couple plans to publish a special Tokyo travel guide soon on poppylissiman.com. It’s been a hard place to leave behind, Lissiman admits, describing her time there as the “best years of my life”. The couple has settled back into Sydney’s eastern suburbs and makes regular visits to Perth to see loved ones (including Lissiman’s brother Andre, who has the distinctive title of “creative juggernaut” for the label), but she misses Tokyo’s serenity. “(When) we got back to Sydney it’s been non-stop. I’m missing Japan quite a lot in that sense,” she says, adding that she’s already planning her next trip back. “I like my own company and going inside my own little world.” But for now, she’s focused on building Poppy Lissiman the brand to new heights. Part of any successful fashion business is harnessing the power of the celebrity endorsement; Lissiman’s distinctive sunglasses and bags have attracted plenty. She has a PR agency in Los Angeles to liaise with stars and close relationships with their stylists. But it’s still an inexact science, she explains. Recently, when pop star Katy Perry stepped out to perform at the MCG for the AFL grand final wearing Lissiman’s Rossi Speedway sunglasses, the size of the resulting ripple took Lissiman by surprise. “Surprisingly, sometimes celebrity placements don’t move the needle too much and other times they really cause a massive spike,” she says. “We sold out of that style in that colour relatively quickly, even overseas where I would have thought the AFL wouldn’t have had that much cut-through.” Some names are almost guaranteed to cause a jump in sales, Lissiman reveals, listing Bella Hadid, Beyonce and Kendall Jenner as examples. The latter carried Lissiman’s Lio tote in an episode of her family’s reality TV show The Kardashians in 2022; the bag continues to be in the brand’s top three bestsellers in the US. There is a handful of celebrities who buy directly and pay in full, with no expectation of a gift. But not every encounter has such a happy ending, Lissiman concedes. “I do have some pretty memorable stories, some good and bad,” she says. “I won’t say who, but we had a celebrity come into our US showroom to take piles and piles of samples — not wear them but to sell the items on their eBay store ‘for charity’ — pocketing 90 per cent of the sale price and giving away the other 10 per cent.” But stars with questionable morals aside, Lissiman has come a long way from the days when she made her first “proper” venture into fashion as a teenager, selling her handmade dresses in stores including Billie & Rose in Fremantle and Brownies in Claremont. She started her own label making high-end womenswear in 2008, supporting herself by working in shoe store Zomp, then opened her own bricks and mortar shop in Claremont in 2011, stocking her label as well as international brands. “Nothing could have prepared me for how hard it would be running a retail store on top of having a label,” Lissiman admits. “I was designing seasonal collections for (the store) and wholesaling to other stores across Australia and overseas . . . It was so financially and physically taxing. ” But she struck gold when her store ran low on accessories one day and she decided to replenish stocks by designing some clutch bags. When they were done, Lissiman gifted some to early social media influencers, such as Leandra Medine from Man Repeller, and before she knew it, they’d gone viral. When it was time to renew the store’s lease agreement, she made a leap of faith and decided to close it, pivoting to solely designing accessories and selling them online. “Accessories were a lot easier to sell to a wider range of people regardless of location as they’re mostly trans-seasonal,” Lissiman explains. “Not carrying products with sizing and being solely online meant I could sell globally 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with way less overheads than the shop. In my mind it was a no-brainer and definitely was a defining moment of the business.” Lissiman made the move into eyewear with her first range in 2014 — it unceremoniously tanked. But she persevered, taking the elements from the one style that sold well and building on it for the next range, which did better. A decade later, she’s known for her sunglasses around the world. When she’s designing, as well as thinking about what she likes to wear Lissiman is inspired by trends and also has in mind what she knows will sell. But at other times, she will take a risk on something “completely random”. Anyone who follows the designer’s personal Instagram account (@popsqueek) will know the plethora of vibrant art and design inspiration she shares (as well as memes she finds particularly hilarious). Her sources of creative inspiration are ever shifting — right now, it’s the late Italian designer Gaetano Pesce and Japanese costume designer Eiko Ishioka, the films Strictly Ballroom and The Holy Mountain by Alejandro Jodorowsky, and music including Crazy P, Madonna’s Ray Of Light album, and New Order (she’s excited to see them on their Australian tour in 2025). In her spare time, she hunts for second-hand homeware treasures on Facebook Marketplace and admits to the relatable habit of “watching god-awful content on TikTok before bed”. But despite embracing the odd occasion of “bed rotting” to rest, Lissiman is happy as long as she has the chance to be creative every day. And those kaftans, to be released this summer, are just one of a multitude of exciting things in the pipeline. “The kaftans are the first of their kind for us, off the back of the success we had from our collection of sarongs which we first released last summer,” Lissiman says. “I personally love and wear a lot of kaftans. This is an area I have been thinking about going into a lot since only doing accessories for the last 10 years. I’ve been reluctant to do a full apparel range again, but I feel like kaftans, being an easy, free-fitting piece, slots into our overall brand ethos. “They’re very much in line with a lot of our other pieces — bold, colourful and a little bit left of centre.” Poppy Lissiman’s pop-up shop is open December 6-8, 10am-5pm, at 86 High Street in Fremantle.