Louise Marson

Louise Marson Naarm/Melbourne-based visual artist working across contemporary art, installation, public art and socially engaged practice.

I repurpose oyster shells and found objects to explore place, ecology, and the tactile power of discarded materials

Reflecting on 2025 ✨ A year of making, momentum and material stories.Four solo exhibitions, with two unfolding at Queen ...
13/01/2026

Reflecting on 2025 ✨ A year of making, momentum and material stories.

Four solo exhibitions, with two unfolding at Queen Victoria Market, a place that has become such a meaningful site for my practice. From community to craft to scale, QVM held space for some of my most ambitious work to date. 🦪🦪🦪🛒

These beaded installation dangles feel like a quiet bridge into 2026; gestures of continuity, shimmer, and movement. Still listening to materials. Still letting them lead. Still building worlds from what’s been discarded and overlooked.

Grateful, grounded, and ready for what’s next 💫

Photography by Mark Ashkanasy

These hats began their life on the Salvos shelf. I rescued them, then repurposed them with hessian and oyster beauty to ...
05/12/2025

These hats began their life on the Salvos shelf. I rescued them, then repurposed them with hessian and oyster beauty to complement my oyster hessian bag fashion collection... ✂️🧵

Who knew hessian and oyster discards could sit front row in fashion? 🦪🦪🦪

These sculptural hats transform working materials into wearable art, gritty and elegant.

Thanks again to and Melbourne Fashion Week for enabling this to showcase throughout Melbourne Fashion Week, October 2025.

Photography: Mark Ashkanasy

My debut high-fashion collection spotlights the unseen. I’m turning overlooked materials into heroes you can wear, advoc...
03/12/2025

My debut high-fashion collection spotlights the unseen. I’m turning overlooked materials into heroes you can wear, advocating for a future where fashion returns to natural fibres, not the man-made. ♻️⚠️♻️⚠️♻️⚠️

Polyester and other man-made fabrics might dominate fast fashion. Still, they come at a cost: microplastics in our oceans, fibres that never truly break down, and garments designed to be disposable. We deserve textiles that honour the planet, not pollute it. 🌊🦪

Maker:

Photography: Genevieve Stephens (photo 1) (photos 2 and 3)

Creative Spaces Creative Australia Creative Victoria

When does art become fashion? Or fashion become art?🎨 Art becomes fashion when concept meets the body. When the artwork ...
25/11/2025

When does art become fashion? Or fashion become art?

🎨 Art becomes fashion when concept meets the body. When the artwork isn’t just seen but worn, lived in, and experienced through living movement and touch.
🪡 Fashion becomes art when it carries an idea. When it tells a story, challenges perception, or invites reflection beyond aesthetics.
💭 The crossover happens in intention: when a piece of clothing ceases to be about trend and becomes about meaning.

🦪🦪🦪🦪🦪

Big shout-out to Boylan Oysters, where I spent time on their farm, gaining insight into this fragile marine ecology. Thanks for showing me your South Australian waterways, great hosts! Great accommodation! Fab fab fab oysters!

🦪🦪🦪🦪🦪

Maker: Lauren De Betue
Photography: (photos 1 and 2), Genevieve Stephens (photo 3), (photo 4).

During the gold rush, oysters were abundant in Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay and were a cheap street food. Today, oysters...
21/11/2025

During the gold rush, oysters were abundant in Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay and were a cheap street food. Today, oysters represent the core of the gentrification of the fish market.

While getting oyster shells from the Queen Victoria Market bins, I came across the oyster hessian sacks that transport oysters from farm to market. The hessian garments are a symbol of the urgency of caring for the country and of the thoughtfulness of materiality. Today, I challenge the viewer to see beyond the hessian’s outer layer and to reflect on the roles we play in consumption and consumerism.

I designed this comfy jumpsuit, lined with recycled cotton sheets and featuring Jet Oysters.

Maker

Photography by .photographer (photo 1) and Helga Salwe Photography (photo 2 and 3).

Tasmanian Oyster Co. are one of the stewards of our coasts, seas and ecosystems. Port Pearler Oysters believes that ever...
15/11/2025

Tasmanian Oyster Co. are one of the stewards of our coasts, seas and ecosystems.

Port Pearler Oysters believes that everyone should be able to experience wild-caught, sustainably farmed, fresh produce.

We all have a responsibility in maintaining our environment and healthy waterways through sustainable living.

Thanks to for the opportunity to launch my debut collection in October 2025 at Shop 143

Special thank you to...
Events team

Photographers, Genevieve Stephens ,
and (photo 1, 2 and 3 respectively)

Maker: Lauren De Betue

Every fibre tells a story. Oysters are the quiet custodians of clean waterways, filtering and nurturing their ecosystems...
11/11/2025

Every fibre tells a story.

Oysters are the quiet custodians of clean waterways, filtering and nurturing their ecosystems.

My debut fashion collection acknowledges the hands that care for both land and sea, from the sustainable farmers at Merimbula Gourmet Oysters, , to the skilled maker Jill Johanson.

Melbourne Fashion Week, 'Shuck & Stitch' installation: Shop 143, Queen Victoria Market, curated and designed by Louise Marson.

Photography and

.australia

Featuring Merimbula Gourmet Oysters! Proud to feature my Merimbula Gourmet Oyster hessian fashion, which has just landed...
08/11/2025

Featuring Merimbula Gourmet Oysters!

Proud to feature my Merimbula Gourmet Oyster hessian fashion, which has just landed at Shop 143, at the Queen Victoria Market.

Oysters are super sensitive to elevated temperatures when growing; thus, the importance of the climate emergency in cherishing our Australian oyster reef systems. Without clean waterways, there would be no oyster products in Australia.
A big thank you to Lauren De Betue, my maker.

A big thank you to Lauren De Betue, my maker.

Photography

City of Melbourne

This is the signature gown of my debut high-fashion hessian oyster bag collection. Visiting in Cowell, SA, about a year...
05/11/2025

This is the signature gown of my debut high-fashion hessian oyster bag collection.

Visiting in Cowell, SA, about a year ago, inspired me to design appealing, comfortable clothing out of hessian bags. Amid their own busy tides, Meagan and Simon Turner from still found time to share their deep care for the water and their oysters. Their sustainable, thoughtful approach to farming was truly inspiring, and I’m deeply grateful for their generosity.

The gown mirrors the care and precision of oyster farming, layer by layer, reflecting the patience, resilience, and ecological stewardship that go into growing Australian oysters. It turned heads at Melbourne Fashion Week

A big thank you to , my maker, who considered every intricate detail of the dress, such as repurposed bed sheets for the lining and fishing line for the amazing twirl of the scarf.

Photography

City of Melbourne

Melbourne Fashion Week allowed me to showcase behind the scenes of Shuck & Stitch, an oyster farm remnant installation i...
01/11/2025

Melbourne Fashion Week allowed me to showcase behind the scenes of Shuck & Stitch, an oyster farm remnant installation in a shop where discards are replaced back into the . Discards destined for landfill to be repurposed as high-end sustainable fashion!

Labelled waste now becomes a statement of sustainability in Melbourne Fashion Week Shop 143, Victoria St, Melbourne

Now I pose the question to you, "When does art become fashion?"

Photography Emily Daye

Creative Spaces City of Melbourne Collarts Victoria University, Melbourne Australia

Thanks, Eryn and Emily from Melbourne Fashion Week, for coming along to my Shuck & Stitch Artist Talk on Saturday. An ex...
29/10/2025

Thanks, Eryn and Emily from Melbourne Fashion Week, for coming along to my Shuck & Stitch Artist Talk on Saturday. An excellent opportunity to showcase my sustainable fashion collection made from oyster hessian bags from . Great working with my maker . Great to have a creative installation at Shop 143 to showcase this work.

Photography by Genevieve Stephens

First time on the runway ever! How did I do? Thanks, Melbourne Fashion Week! Collarts
29/10/2025

First time on the runway ever! How did I do? Thanks, Melbourne Fashion Week!

Collarts

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Melbourne, VIC

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