Lots up Michelle Jank's fashionable sleeve

Fashion favourite Michelle Jank is in talks with a Perth gallery about holding her first exhibition in her home city of Perth next year.

Jank's star is shining brighter than ever thanks to her first foray into costuming, with the Sydney Dance Company's current production Sid's Waltzing Masquerade benefiting from the designer's gorgeous creations.

Combined with her third season showing at the Paris fashion shows and the resulting European orders for her delicate and beautiful creations, Jank has been kept busy over the past months.

Jank said Sid's Waltzing Masquerade will not be her last costuming project.

She feels choreographer Aszure Barton and herself are kindred spirits and costuming is the right fit for her designing talents.

The pair has been discussing working together on a new project in New York.

"She is a great discovery in my life," Jank says.

Working with dancers to create a special feel on stage was a new creative challenge that had proved the right fit.

"It was always about magnifying a feeling that she was creating, or perhaps creating tension and balance, adding texture where needed," Jank says of the current project."

I feel like it was somewhat like working on a large scale painting. Thinking about how the movement and shapes of the costumes affect the negative and positive space of the stage.

"Jank is about to commence work on the new 2009 campaign for the Sydney Dance Company and will be staying put in Sydney until closing night.

Planning on coming home for Christmas, the designer has even more projects up her fashionable sleeve.

"I am in the early days of planning a big collaboration with my creative friends in Sydney next year, a really big scale art work encompassing film, painting, dance, costume… it will be something pretty major," Jank says.

When she returns to Perth later this year Jank will hook up with mentor Wendy Marshall, who owns high end fashion boutique Elle in Nedlands.

"I'm looking forward to talking to Wendy about my next creative plans, that's my ritual," Jank says.

"She is my mentor and inspiration always."