Fashion

10.01.2024

Hey, I Like Your Style! Inside the wardrobe of lawyer and content creator, Sonali Fernando

Image via @gnarlynados/Instagram

Words by Lucy Andrews

“You know the term ‘less is more’? I embody and project the opposite of that.”

We know personal style is a journey (I’m looking at you, Tumblr years) and our series Hey, I Like Your Style! dives into the fashion psyche of our favourite creatives. We’re talking the good, the bad and the 2007.

While the internet has made our fashion icons feel closer than ever before, even the most effortless of outfits came from a closet with some (well-dressed) skeletons. Clickable product tags, photo archives and lives chronicled in 30-second clips just don’t tell the full story.

For more fashion news, shoots, articles and features, head to our Fashion section.

These are the stories behind the wardrobes, exploring how we develop our own personal style. There’s a brilliance behind the way we choose to express ourselves and at FJ, we know every outfit has a story.

This week we chat with lawyer, artist and content creator, Sonali Fernando. A lover of “unique, quirky and colourful items”, Sonali’s wardrobe is a mix of op shop finds, hand-me-downs and pieces from local designers. Growing up during the early 2000s fluro renaissance and the era of Tumblr ‘scene kids’, she spent her formative years learning to navigate what identity means to her. Read on to find out how Sonali’s connection to her culture and self-love journey shaped the maximalist uniform she wears today.

Who are you and what do you like to wear?

Hi, I’m Sonali Fernando. By day, I’m a lawyer based in Boorloo. By night, I’m a fashion content creator, budding stylist and artist. I love wearing unique, quirky and colourful items, typically themed for my moods and events happening in my life.

I also love to match and clash patterns, colours and textures together in my outfits to create a look of what I could only call ‘coordinated chaos’. You know the term ‘less is more’? I embody and project the opposite of that.

What has your style evolution looked like? Do you feel like you’ve gained confidence in the way you dress?

My style pipeline is pretty familiar – my trend-following/white-washed teenage years were a contrast to my early twenties, where I developed and experimented with clothing in the form of wearing some colours and patterns I love and layering. I would say the evolution that followed is very close to the complete ‘me’ style.

Confidence is the underlying change for my evolution as I’ve gotten older. I’ve grown more confident and comfortable with who I am, particularly in terms of embracing my differences and my ethnicity, being South Asian. Once I was okay with this, I think a whole new level of confidence and creativity was unleashed within me.

It essentially allowed me to start drawing inspiration from everything that makes me, me – the corporate world, my culture, my love of cute stuff, colour and prints… you get the idea. These days, even if I know I’m wearing an ‘extra’ outfit and others won’t be dressed like me, I don’t care because I’m being true to myself and that’s all that matters.

Personal style is a journey. Have you ever felt like you needed to fit into a particular fashion box?

Absolutely! My hometown is semi-rural suburbia in Boorloo. My background is Sri Lankan, and I am a lawyer by trade. At times, all these things (which I appreciate are also privileges) have made me feel so limited and small. It’s like I need to make myself smaller to fit into a box society expects me to fit into, to not draw attention to myself – whether that’s dressing more conservatively, not wearing colour, not wearing ‘weird’ things or wearing ‘appropriate’ traditional clothing.

As I have gotten older and more confident, I have found ways to balance all these factors about myself and fashion – sometimes even drawing inspiration from them. However, it is a journey and there are undoubtedly times when even to this day, I second guess what I am wearing, or feel out of place or have to tone it down. One of my goals for 2024 is to continue this journey of being unashamedly ‘me” in fashion and every aspect of my life – let them stare, I don’t care anymore!

Take us back to those awkward teenage years. Do you have any fashion regrets?

Too many… this question makes me feel some type of way. My teenage years were when I really started experimenting with fashion and also when the early 2000s trends were massive – a perfect storm. First came the super fluro/Jay Jays T-shirt phase, then ‘boho Sonali’ who thrived on how many patterned shirts from Temt and animal necklaces from Diva she owned.

A fleeting ‘scene’ girl phase even followed this! And don’t even get me started on my hair. I straightened my curly hair almost every day, sporting a long at the front, short at the back ‘Karen haircut’, a quiff (obviously because of the ‘Single Ladies’ music video) and then the teased ‘scene’ girl hair.

Style is a journey though. My saving grace was that in year 12, I discovered Etsy and vintage fashion and wore a gorgeous long-sleeved, party-in-the-back Oleg Cassini dress to formal (it was an iconic move by me if I do say so myself).

What are the most expensive and least expensive items in your wardrobe?

I strongly believe that it’s not about the brand or how expensive it is, but rather how you style it. About 95 per cent of my wardrobe is secondhand fashion. The least expensive items are those that I have been given by friends (so free) or that I have purchased at half-price sales at op shops, none more than $5.

There are, of course, wild card op shop finds that are worth more than what I paid for, such as my Ellery skirt (thrifted in Kununurra, Western Australia, of all places) and a few other lucky designer-ish/cool finds.

However, I’m just a girl at the end of the day, and my most expensive item is an Italy guilt purchase – my D&G graffiti handbag which I have no idea what to do with now. At the end of the day, what I consider to be my most expensive items are the ones that I think are the most unique and cool despite the dollar value.

What is the most meaningful fashion piece you own?

Without a doubt, all the items passed down (read: stolen) from my mum and grandma’s closet. Call me sentimental, but there’s just something so special about finding ways to re-wear and reclaim pieces from your family that have so much history and so many memories attached to them.

My family doesn’t know very much about our family tree/history (shoutout colonisation) and because of this, it’s my way of honouring and connecting to them and having them with me for important events.

Who or what influences your style?

This might sound lame, but I am influenced by what makes me, me, as well as the people around me. A big part of this is my personality – it’s playful, bold, creative and at times, cute… this translates into my style. You see it with the cartoon or novelty bags I add into my style, the fun prints and my quirky styling.

I draw so much inspiration from my background too, particularly in terms of incorporating colour and prints, fusing Western dress standards with more traditional elements from my culture (think traditional bags and elements of saree draping). Finally, my mum is an effortless fashion icon and loves her colours and prints as well.

We are a ‘fashion show family’ so often I’ll ‘fashion show’ my outfits with her (it’s serious business). More recently, I’ve started to build a network of internet fashion friends around me. They inspire and influence me every day, especially because a lot of them have different styles and ideas from me.

What fashion piece are you saving for right now?

Honestly, none! I don’t think I’ve ever really had a list of items I want. Instead, for me, it’s more about finding and coming across things in person/online and then purchasing them if I think they are special enough to add to my wardrobe (impulse/mood-lifting purchases excluded).

Particularly because I op shop so frequently, I like to leave my brain to run free and think about the potential of all pieces, rather than working off a mood board or list of pieces I want. I feel that would be limiting.

I think the closest I would get to this is having styles, materials and textures I’m manifesting at the op shop or searching for in items – but even then, these are somewhere deep in my brain, and sometimes I don’t even know I want something until I do (Gemini things).

What are the wardrobe items you wear on repeat?

I don’t or rather can’t because I’m a sustainable maximalist. I appreciate those two things are contradictory, but in my brain, this means that I need to try to wear all pieces I own relatively equally or at least get as much wear from the items I’ve amassed as much as possible. This means that whenever I am going somewhere I set myself the challenge of using new items, old items and less-worn items to create my outfits – often by wearing them in new ways.

Who are your favourite local designers?

For clothes, after attending the Injury fashion show at Australian Fashion Week, I have been obsessed and one day I will own/wear one of their pieces. For shoes, Twoobs will always have a special place in my heart for their fun, sustainable and colourful shoes.

For jewellery, I have always been a longtime admirer/recent wearer of Zaric Jewellery. There are also awesome new local designers on the scene that I’m obsessed with such as Spice Gurl Garage Sale, Lost Hearts the Label, Astasia Official and Yapa Mali.

For more of Sonali’s outfits, head here.