Welcome, friends.
We've been dressing for the dancefloor since day one.
Lilivant was born from a life-long obsession with dancefloor culture, a desire to flourish Australia’s festival fashion market, and a disdain for fast-fashion knock offs. We have an undying respect for independent designers and cult brands that create the best work in the scene. Being on a (not-so) little island, we knew we needed a home for the best in avant-garde, rave-infused, and festival-inspired fashion. So we built it.
We curate brands from every corner of the earth so you can step on to any dance floor as your best self. We’re the first brand that caters to the entire global festival calendar and we celebrate the spectrum of dance culture. That’s why we platform the bold, glitter-drenched mainstage pieces right alongside the Vantablack-dark techno staples.
We invite you to step inside our world, pick your poison, and meet us on the dancefloor.
Our Origins
It all started in the bush.
"At 14, I attended my first rave, welcoming the year 2000 at an all-ages event called Utopia, held at Wonderland, a Sydney theme park out in the sticks that has long since closed. Somehow, I convinced my parents to pick us up at 7am on New Year's Day after watching a dusty sunrise set amid Australian bushland. It was my first taste of the rave, techno music and the sense of community that came with it."
For LILIVANT Founder, Rose Lamond, the years that followed were a special era in Australian rave culture. Early 2000’s trance, driving around in cheap second-hand cars with drum & bass legends like Dilinja blasting through the speakers, and crate digging on Napster and LimeWire. No smartphones, no social media. Just Mixmag pulled off the shelf, rave flyers left outside music stores, warehouse parties, and weekend plans made in the school playground.
"We would stay up all night making our outfit creations and rave kandi. Often you wouldn't know the location until the day of the event, when a text message would finally arrive on our Nokia 5210's. For a group of suburban teenagers, that sense of mystery and discovery was pure magic."
Our Leap
Time flew by, and with it came a fifteen-year career in corporate marketing. Rose built the skills and the financial footing to follow her dream, but the rat race nearly extinguished her love of the scene.
"I had quite a long time away from the scene as my life revolved around a corporate career. It wasn't until my mid-thirties that I really reconnected with it... I spent many long days and nights in the office working to intense deadlines that required deep focus. Long techno sets got me through those years. After leaving that career completely burnt out and considering what to do next, it became clear that the one thing I had consistently stayed connected to was electronic music."
Luckily, a close friend supported Rose on a journey to reignite her connection to the scene, and transformed her life for the better.
It started with local events before a cliff dive into the infamous Tomorrowland. It was there that the gap in the market became impossible to ignore.
"While planning our outfits, I realised how difficult it was to find quality festival fashion from independent designers and cult brands, both in Australia and globally. Search results were dominated by fast-fashion replicas, and the shopping experience felt fragmented and uninspiring.
“As an elder raver, I also felt that many of the existing stores were speaking exclusively to a young audience, which didn't reflect the reality of the dancefloor. Electronic music communities are incredibly diverse, with people attending events well into their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond."
“That realisation was the spark for LILIVANT.”
Our Moment
Rose feels like life has led her to LILIVANT, not the other way around.
“My early rave experiences, the handmade outfits, discovering independent designers, supporting the underground and adopting the ethos of the culture have all shaped what LILIVANT is today."
"Rave has always been about self-expression and inclusivity, and fashion forms a huge part of that. What people wear is often an extension of their identity, their creativity and the communities they belong to. Yet for some reason, fashion within electronic music is often overlooked by both scene-related and mainstream fashion media."
As global ecommerce has boomed, fast fashion giants (IYKYK) moved in and crowded out the independent designers and local boutiques who'd been quietly doing the hard work for decades.
"It frustrates me because it feels disconnected from the origins of rave culture, which was built on community, creativity, individuality and supporting independent creators."
And festival fashion isn't seasonal the way people assume.
"If you follow the global festival calendar, it is really a year-round market. There is always a festival season happening somewhere in the world... As Australians, we're probably among the people who see the global calendar most clearly. We spend our summers at bush doofs, boat parties and festivals, then head off for our annual Euro summer, often packing for multiple destinations and events in a single trip."
"Our distance has given us a unique perspective and helped shape how LILIVANT has come together.”
Our Name
Every scene in global dance culture has its own visual language. Burning Man and EDC are costume-built, which is wildly different to what you’d see at a Berlin, Ibiza, and a UKG night. LILIVANT was built to hold and celebrate every subculture without flattening any genre into one look.
“We've been very conscious of the unique identities across the dance culture spectrum while building LILIVANT. From our merchandising to our styling, we've given equal weight to different genres and communities rather than presenting electronic music culture as one thing. Even the name reflects that thinking.”
"The 'VANT' in LILIVANT draws inspiration from Vantablack, the blackest black known, representing the darker, underground and techno side of the community. The 'LILI' represents the more colourful, expressive and glitter-covered side often associated with EDM and mainstage. Everything in between belongs to."
"The goal has never been to define the culture, but to create a platform broad enough to celebrate its many different expressions."
Our People
"We are a fashion platform built organically from within the global dance community, rather than a conglomerate that sees the financial and marketing opportunity to tap into it."
"The independent designers and the cult brands embraced by ravers are part of the community too, alongside the DJs, promoters, media channels and fans. They help shape the culture just as much as the people on the dancefloor."
"We hope that LILIVANT becomes a place where these designers can be acknowledged, protected, discovered and supported. We also want it to be where fellow ravers come to when their fast fashion replica has fallen apart and they're ready to invest in something more original, made with care, and genuinely connected to the culture they love."
