Alexia Petsinis is a Greek Australian illustrator, writer and designer with an enviable portfolio, covering a diverse array of mediums including fashion and lifestyle illustration, fashion writing, blogging and design.
Her clients include Agence de Parfum, Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival, Alison Jade Cosmetics, Westfield (Australia), The French Facialist, Penguin Books, Flowers Victoria and Officeworks. Alexia has also worked as a feature writer with L’Officiel Magazine (Australia), Cielo Magazine (France) and Voxfrock (Australia).
As she herself admits, creative expression is a way of life. Ever since she was old enough to hold a pen, Alexia has curated a world of colour, sentiment and style.
“I think I’ve always known I’d end up dedicating myself to creative work in some way, whether it be illustrating, writing or designing,” she says.
“I’ve kind of felt that spark inside me since I was quite small.”
Alexia draws inspiration from a variety of discourses including literature, Impressionist art and the world of niche perfumery and manifests it through both the written word and visual expression.
Touching on fine art, literature and music, Alexia communicates her diverse yet always chic aesthetic in a unique, colourful manner.
“It’s not something I can really explain, it’s like an energy that comes to me in the simplest of ways,” she explains.
“It might be the notes in my favourite perfume or the feeling I get when I watch a ballerina perform.”
Illustration, especially when combined with fashion, allows her to “escape to other worlds” and interact with many characters in her head.
“There’s something in those moments that belongs to a reality of its own; it’s something I feel compelled to capture.
“I can get lost in what I’m doing for hours and hours – for me that’s when the spark really comes, when you let go and escape from your own reality a little bit.”
From an early age, Alexia used to imagine what it would be like to illustrate on a daily basis, and she hoped she’d eventually get to that point at the age of 40.
“It happened very quickly for me, but I feel so lucky for it, and I never take it for granted,” she says, attributing these opportunities to hard work and networking, but mostly to being confident in putting her work out into the public sphere,whilst staying true to her personal values.
“I’ve often said I’d be a very lost person without my work; particularly my illustrated and written work,” Alexia says.
“It’s a part of me I’ve never lived without really, so I can’t imagine not engaging with the world creatively.”
Having trained under some of the fashion industry’s most esteemed writers and journalists, her written work reflects a sensitive commingling of mood and form that engages the senses of her readers.
Alexia has fulfilled various reporting roles during Paris Fashion Week, Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival and Melbourne Spring Fashion Week, while also contributing feature articles, runway reports, product reviews and retrospective pieces for L’Officiel Magazine Australia, Cielo Magazine France and Voxfrock Australia.
She has also written feature articles for esteemed fashion media publications – both Australian and French – has covered fashion weeks in Australia and internationally for print and online, illustrated a book with Penguin Australia, as well as various campaigns and projects for established brand names.
Currently working on writing her own novel, she chooses not to disclose much, but we can only imagine the decadent imagery that will accompany her stories.
To find out more about Alexia Petsinis and her work head to www.alexiapetsinis.com and follow her on Instagram @alexiapetsinis for a peek into her beautiful and stylish world.