In our weekly interview about objects, the creative director to the stars tells us about his old, ‘cringe’ poetry, and the graphic novel he’d save from a burning house
A short film about Paul Bui’s 20-year career will air at Powerhouse Museum on Thursday June 2.As told toaul Bui’s career spans fashion, music and community work. He has served as creative director of London style magazine The Face, edited Australian fashion bible Oyster Mag and recently founded Community Bread, a livestream platform that raises money for marginalised artists.
, a free event at the Powerhouse Museum on Thursday 2 June. For Bui, the thread connecting all elements of his work is storytelling – especially amplifying the voices of queer people of colour. That love of storytelling goes back to his childhood in Canberra, where Bui would escape into the countercultural narratives created by an electronic music duo called Drexciya. Decades on, he counts a new graphic novel based on Drexciya’s music as one of his most prized possessions.
One of my favourite books is Buffalo: The Life and Style of Ray Petri, which chronicles the work of stylist Ray Petri who ignited the “Buffalo” style revolution in the 80s. Buffalo was arguably an antithesis to the vapid and elitist style coming out during that time – super scrappy and DIY; a constant source of inspiration.The other book I would grab is a graphic novel I bought recently called The Book of Drexciya.
Similarly, I wish I’d kept copies of my work when I took a creative writing course in my final year at university. I recall writing a short story about a little boy growing up in 1950s Connecticut who gets caught playing dress ups in his mother’s clothes and is forced to undergo electroshock treatment. Then there was the screenplay I wrote about two hilarious rival drag queens, living in squalor and dying from a rare bone cancer.
I’d probably cringe if I read these again, but it holds sentimental value to me – it was the first time I fully realised the power of storytelling. Perhaps in some ways, storytelling was a way for me to process my own traumas growing up, but I seemed especially drawn to the stories of those who have felt othered, whether they were abstract or linear.
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