Vale fashion designer and artist Aurelio Costarella who has passed away, aged 60

Western Australian fashion designer and artist Aurelio Costarella has passed away today, aged 60.

The Perth designer icon’s passing was announced in an online post that stated Aurelio “peacefully left this world this morning to begin his journey to a new one. Sending love to all whose hearts he had touched.”

Costarella reportedly died following a brief battle with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare brain disorder that can lead to dementia, personality changes, blindness, and ultimately death.

Aurelio will be remembered as the quiet achiever, quite literally, often prudent in his social interactions and always coming across as contemplative as if to be soaking in the best of what he was watching or whom he was interacting with.

Known by friends and initially by industry colleagues simply as ‘Ray’, Aurelio began his fashion career in 1983, making dresses on his mother’s Singer treadle sewing machine.

Self-taught as a fashion designer with only his architectural training behind him, by the end of the 1980s, Ray Costarella was a fully fledged fashion brand; a label coveted by domestic debutantes and cool clubbers alike.

Costarella once told Ragtrader magazine, “I didn’t have a clue about marketing a collection or running a fashion business. I learned by making mistakes. I recall buying my first fax machine in the early ’90s – that was revolutionary!”

In the late 1990s and for much of the new millennium, Aurelio Costarella maintained his fashion label, showcasing stunning collections at Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, New York and Paris Fashion Weeks.

Owning flagstore stores that opened with fanfare and closed with fashionistas often left frowning (so adored were his clothes), the designer also consigned his designs to individual boutiques, at one point having his label available in no less than 100 outlets across Australia.

His gowns and suits have been worn by the famous likes of Cate Blanchett, Charlize Theron, Rihanna, and Dita Von Teese.

Costarella’s designs often featured in print editions of Cream magazine, and the designer would often take time out to send the publication a congratulatory note whenever a landmark birthday came around. On one such occasion, on a cover featuring Perth-raised actress Melissa George, Costarella wrote, “chiaroscuro, nothing is black & white”, showing his deeper, perhaps darker side, with further lime-green Texta writing on the cover, including a tongue-in-cheek “cat that got the cream” line.

A follower of classic style with a certain humility, an eye for gorgeous design, and certainly a man who knew his way around a silhouette, Aurelio Costarella was fashion design personified.

The limelight of the runway sadly had to compete with a darker aspect of Aurelio’s life. Over the past decade, he was very open about his suffering from bouts of depression, and he once told The Weekend West that he needed to cut Aurelio Costarella, the label, free, so that he could get more in touch with Aurelio Costarella, the man.

In March 2017, Costarella decided to officially quit the fashion industry and he eventually moved into the realm of visual arts, painting on giant canvases for a niche clientele. His only real return to fashion was in the form of scarves he designed using digital technique, launched at and made available in the Art Gallery of Western Australia’s Design Store.

After more than four decades of creating some of the most beautiful designs to come out of Australia, Aurelio Costarella will always be remembered as one of the few creative folks from WA who managed to maintain a nice balance of art and commerce, dignity in a fickle scene, and the toughness it takes to survive in an everchanging, competitive fashion landscape.

Perth fashion followers, and of course friends and family are all still reeling over the passing of a brilliant guy and true fashion icon.

Thank you for all the great creativity, Aurelio.

Rest in peace.

Antonino Tati