How couturier Steven Khalil navigated being a designer and building a brand

From a boy, Australian couturier Steven Khalil knew he wanted to design wedding gowns.

Khalil recently entered the home interiors market in collaboration with Designer Rugs— marking the beginning of his journey to follow the trajectory of Vera Wang with Steven Khalil Interieur. 

This year he celebrated 30 years in business, dressed hundreds of brides and is preparing to launch a footwear range.

Australian designers are arguably among the world’s best, but ‘making it’ overseas and ensuring longevity in the industry, even after much success, is another story.

The success story of Zimmerman and the liquidation of Dion Lee– are two polarising fates of what can become of two known Australian designers.

In the midst of Australia’s high wedding season, Inside Retail sat down with Khalil to discuss how he’s navigated making a commercially viable career as a couture designer in the turbulent fashion industry.

Inside Retail: Being an Australian fashion designer is no easy feat, even if you’re amazing, it’s hard to ‘make it’. When did you go ‘all in’ on being a designer?

Steven Khalil: I had that mindset from the beginning.

My mindset was, that I needed to make being a designer work.

Failure was not an option.

When I first started Australia was very big in the bridal market. Australia is very big on a bride, going to see a dressmaker or a designer and sitting with them and having a dress custom made.

In the US and Europe, it’s considered a very elite experience to sit with the designer and have your wedding dress made.

Overseas you’ll go into the likes of a Vera Wang boutique; you choose a style out of their aesthetic, and then you walk out theoretically with that dress.

What made it easier for me is I was a couture designer, and I was just making people dresses individually, one by one– bespoke.

But then the market started to change about 15 or so years ago, that’s why we went into David Jones and The Wedding Club to cater to people wanting to buy wedding dresses through department stores and boutiques. That’s when I started to change the aesthetic of the brand to make it more readily available. 

And in doing so, I made the decision to go to that next level of supplying the dresses as a ready made product, and not doing bespoke as much.

IR: A lot of designers have started in bridal, and now dress public figures for events. Whilst the publicity is good, is evening wear a lucrative market to be in, as a bespoke designer? And how has your offering evolved?

SK: Yeah, look, I’ve made the decision to be exclusively focusing my attention towards bridal and I’ve shown in Paris my evening wear collection, but to be honest with you, I think we’re evolving in the evening wear market.

I think there are really beautiful gowns that you can just go buy, and they’re really accessible, well priced, and it’s really hard to compete with that, whereas with a wedding gown, it’s a bit more of a special purchase.

So I’ve targeted my energy towards bridal gowns, and I’ve kind of put the evening wear on the back burner for now.

For example, the Maison collection is my more read-to-wear bridal line.

IR: How have you navigated living your passion and ensuring it is a commercially viable business?

SK: When I first started, I made the decision to become a designer. I knew that it would either go one way or another. 

It would either be me sewing at home and making things for friends, or I was going to turn it into a brand.

So, I often say to anyone who goes into fashion, you’ve got to make the decision that you need to turn this into something or it can be a hobby.

With fashion retail, you’ve got to really turn it around and jump in head first to make that decision, to turn that into a brand.

IR: Ok, on that note let’s cut to the more scalable Steven Khalil product offerings. You’ve got a fragrance and jewellery range and a shoe line launching in February 2025. How did this come about and what is the retail strategy for the footwear offering?

SK: It’s a new venture. I worked with my product developer and she’s incredible and found me the supplier to make the shoe in Italy. We’ve been working together to ensure the quality, standard and design. 

A shoe line is another thing that I’ve just always wanted to do, and that’s just like, just evolved in the last six months.

IR: You’ve recently celebrated 30 years in fashion. How did you get into design?

SK: I started sewing when I was six.

Every year from then my sewing skills got stronger.

I did textiles and design in high school, and the minute I left high school, I went straight into fashion design.

I made the decision that I wanted to do bridal gowns because I loved wedding dresses. I’ve always loved them. From a little boy.

IR: Say Yes to the Dress, I’m sure, is a favourite of yours?

SK: Yes to the dress!

When I’m at home I try to switch it up and tap out of bridal, because my career is entrenched in bridal, but I love it. 

It was a young love affair with wedding gowns that has evolved and developed.

IR: Have you always had the boutique in Paddington?

SK: Yeah, it’s always been the flagship showroom in Paddington.

We were also stocked at David Jones for a period when they had a bridal boutique.

I started stocking in London boutiques about 15 years ago.

IR: What is the career legacy you want to have?

SK: My career legacy would be, I’d love to kind of follow in the footsteps of the designers behind the likes of Chanel and Dior.

And hopefully, when I pass, someone comes in and carries on the brand and just does beautiful things with it.

Creating beautiful gowns, and, you know, looking to the inspiration of what I’ve done in the past, and bringing that back to life and rebirthing things.

Basically, I’m hoping that someone comes in and takes it over, into its next chapter when I’m gone.

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