Christopher Esber

Christopher Esber (born 1987) is an Australian fashion designer, the founder and designer of his eponymous womenswear label, based in Sydney. The label is known for deconstructed tailoring and sculptural silhouettes. In 2024, he became the first Australian to win the Grand Prize of the ANDAM Fashion Award.

Early life and education Esber was born in 1987 at Auburn Hospital in Sydney's western suburbs, the youngest of three children of Lebanese immigrants, both teachers, who had moved to Australia in 1980; the family later settled in nearby Merrylands. He completed his Higher School Certificate at Our Lady of Lebanon College in Harris Park in 2005. Before starting his label, he trained for twelve months with a tailor.

Career

Founding the label In 2010, aged 22, Esber founded the label with a small loan from his parents and made his solo debut at Australian Fashion Week the same year. In January 2012, Esber presented in New York as one of the Australian Five, an emerging-designer event at the Crosby Street Hotel organized by the Woolmark Company with the Australians in New York Fashion Foundation around that year's G'Day USA program. He represented Australia at the international final in Milan in February 2014, where the prize went to India's Rahul Mishra. By 2025, the label sold through more than 130 stockists in 46 countries and employed a team of 35, most of them in Australia.

ANDAM Grand Prize On June 27, 2024, Esber won the Grand Prize of the 35th ANDAM Fashion Award in Paris, at the time having recently expanded the label into swim and jewelry. The prize carried a €300,000 grant and a year of mentoring from the 2024 jury president Anthony Vaccarello, the creative director of Saint Laurent and himself the 2011 winner. He was added to the BoF 500 in 2024. Lauren Sams of The Australian Financial Review has described his pieces, with their handmade hardware and metal corsetry, as "part clothing, part sculpture". Esber has said he looks up to Nicolas Ghesquière's work for Balenciaga and to Miuccia Prada.