Marisa, a Sydney-based stylist, draws contemporary fashion into her unique vision of youth.  Her list of clients and collaborators is a who’s who list of brands, local tastemakers and international heavy hitters, including Genesis Owusu, RUSSH Magazine, and Beabadoobee, to name a few.

Riffling through Marisa’s work or swiping through her stories, it’s clear that she has a certain je ne sais quoi that graces everything she does. Her approach lies somewhere between a silver-tongued cultural critic and a savant of brain rot, whether it’s offering insight into her life, wardrobe, current trends, or kitchen creations as a home pâtissière. 

We caught up with Marisa to talk about her career thus far, thoughts on personal style, and the best place to dine solo. 

Hi Marisa! To pull back the curtain a little, we had talked last October at the very last SXSW Sydney (RIP). At the time, you said you were pretty burnt out from styling and work in general. Did you take some time to restore your energy and passion?

I just survived THE BIG 3 – burn out, an ankle injury and a break up of 5+yrs this year (It’s March). So it’s like LFG! Honestly though, the ankle injury really forced me to accept I cannot/don’t need to do 10 billion things in 1 day…and that was/is actually really hard for me. I’m still learning (and I think it does take time) how to fully decompress and be content with doing like 3 things a day and accepting that is totally NORMAL and ok.

Taking it all the way back, when did you first begin to think you had an eye for design and fashion?

Disgustingly cliché, but I was probably 10 years old or something. I would save up $50 to get the bi-annual vogue collections magazines, I loved McQueen – He and Rei Kawakubo (Comme des Garçons) were the designers that opened me up to the world of fashion. I remember seeing McQueen’s AW2009 collection (at the age of 12) – the very overlined red lips on the models and thinking this whole thing is sooooo freaky bizarre..I loved it!

Can you explain the journey between being a UNSW design graduate to working with clients like Adidas, JD Sports, and Beabadoobee? 

Ok strap in..this is funny because people always ask me how I got into styling and if I studied “styling” but I actually have a Bachelor of Design (Hons) and I majored in Graphic Design and Textiles. I was doing mainly art based work (textile art) all throughout my uni degree and a bit after. I guess it made sense because I went to art school. Then I moved to New York. I actually moved there hating it – but knew there had to be something there if everyone & media/film were ALWAYS going on about it. And alas indeed, the chokehold of New York began. 

During this time, I discovered I in fact HATED art (still sort of do), only because it was sososo oversaturated, every second person was an artist and I would go on so many gallery crawls (with a good friend who works in art fundraising/curation so I got access to a lot of exhibits, etc) and 90% of the art was sooo…..I started to pivot back into design. 

Covid moved me back to Sydney, and I call this my rock bottom era. Unemployed and mourning my break up with New York (lmaoooo, so dramatic). I obviously had so much time on my hands and a lot of friends were photographers – so bored with their day jobs shooting ecom, so they wanted to do more fun projects on the side. I started styling shoots with them for fun…then I sort of just fell into “styling”. Like yes, I was already interested and wanted to pursue it but it sort of happened so fast. I was doing it for fun and then I started getting actual jobs. At this time, I had actually gotten a full-time job in marketing for e-commerce wholesale – that shiii was turbo (a drop every week so a turnover was 5 business days). So you can imagine how exhausting this was, I remember thinking why do I do so much marketing and branding for someone else when I could be doing this for myself? So at some point, I was like if I took freelancing full time…I think I could make it work. It was so SCARY to take that leap – the only reason being financial stability. But the week I was finishing up that marketing job, it was a Wednesday and a shoot day, I had lined up a shoot on the Thursday, Friday and something the following week. So basically I went from one extremely exhausting job to an even worse one <3 HAHA!

And to finally answer your question working with such clients – I guess the more you work the more people you encounter and get referred to for these projects. I’m super grateful and lucky to have had and have these opportunities.

When you’re working on a campaign, what does a usual day on set look like for you?

It depends on the campaign and the brand. But in general on set, lots of adapting. Most of the time you don’t get a fitting so a lot of impromptu fitting & fixes with tight time, random things going wrong etc. For location shoots, lots of running around on top of that.

Though I do want to highlight that being a stylist isn’t just having a chaotic day on set, there is so much that goes on before and after the shoot day (I think clients OFTEN forget this). The prep work, returns, loaning, sourcing and back/forth emails are a lot…some turnover times I’ve worked with are actually CRIMINAL.

When you approach your work, how do you navigate the relationship between your personal tastes and what’s in vogue? Do they align more often than not? 

Again, depending on the project. For campaigns and more commercial work, it’s really about adapting to the brief – I feel like a lot of the time it’s not too much on personal taste for these, but perhaps a personal touch or curation of the brief in alignment to branding, talent, talent’s vibes, their sizing within the time frame. And because these are usually more commercial – you do want to bring in some “on trend” pieces/style to relate to the consumer (It’s giving #marketing).

In more creative or personal projects, I don’t think “trends” concern me…perhaps sometimes they can inspire me, but a lot of the time I’m not thinking about what’s trending or “cool” at the moment. I am famously the biggest hater (you can ask any of my friends) and I think the beauty of this is I know what I DO like – which makes veto-ing fugly pieces and gravitating towards interesting pieces easier. 

We’re currently living in a world of brain rot, micro-trends, and algorithmic influences that bypass our consciousness. Is it still possible to have a personal style in 2026 that’s not influenced by a reel, Tik Tok, or explore page?

Ok first of all – I am chronically online, I love being fed an abundance of all this bullshit. And yes I still think it’s possible to have personal style. I mean personal style is so subjective and can be anything…well because it’s personal (duh?). Even if it is influenced by reels/tiktok..like that’s still someone’s personal style or taste. 

For me it’s like – it’s (personal style) really not that serious. As long as you’re fulfilled confident abundant, it feels right, having fun and hopefully not taking it too serious, then voila that’s you, that’s your style! And I think style is something that constantly evolves because we as people evolve too.

Do you think there is a ubiquitous or signature Sydney style?

Depends where you live in Sydney right? HAHA. But if we want to say in general, a broader sense perhaps, from an international lens – it’s very much like beachwear/coastal influenced, active wear, dare I say basic (not derogatory)? In this realm, I’d like to think Sydney style is like LA #cleangirl…but maybe less performative and a season or two behind (#southernhemisphere).

Outside of fashion, what are your other creative outlets and passions? 

I LOOOOVE this question… it’s almost like is there a life outside of fashion (eye roll) – insufferable and I hate how it can get to this point. But of course…y’all know I be doing 10 billion things. I think it’s so important to have passions outside of work, even if work is your passion.

I have been trying to cook more. I actually started cooking maybe 3 years ago (as a result from burn out..IJBOL) For lore, I actually used to hate cooking soososo much, like you would NOT catch me in the kitchen, it always felt like a chore. I therefore, also had the worst diet. Lore knowers know a meal for me would be chips, chocolate, a bag of lollies and then some ice cream…like that was soooo normal and it’s sooo funny reflecting now because i’ve done a full 180 and eat so #cleangirl now. 

In the past year or so, I started eating better for numerous reasons but one of them being the fact that I was cooking more and cracked the code of having things prepped/ready in the fridge – so after like an exhausting 10-14hr shoot day I would go home and something is grabbable & nourishing – not spending what – $30 now on uber eats/eating out. Currently, I have been experimenting with baking or making sweet treats for people’s birthdays and that has been so JOYOUS. 

Besides that..learning french (and hopefully more languages). And damn, learning a language is so hard at this age – and it’s like everyday I have to work and speak/listen in english so I’m constantly fighting losing french exposure. I sometimes make random Tiktoks DIML/cooking videos in french for practice, and that has been a really enjoyable way to practice it, making it fun and creative.

When I was doing my homework for this interview, I came across a short interview of yours from 2018. You were asked what you’d be doing in five years. Your response was, “We’ll see!” (which I love). Though we’re closer to ten years now, how do you feel about your career successes and overall growth so far? 

CRAZY, BECAUSE WHAT INTERVIEW IS THAT EVEN FROM? Though, it’s sooo something I would say. Reflecting on this time, so much has happened like I moved to New York after that interview and then moved back to Sydney and have worked in different sectors of fashion within that time. Now I’m a FT stylist? It’s sorta insane…but I wouldn’t expect anything less of myself, like as I should. And honestly if you were to ask me that question again, where I would be in x amount of years..I would still say the same. We’ll see! 🙂

Since we started as a foodie account, it feels only right to ask you for a food recommendation. However, I saw your recent post and was inspired. So, what and where would you recommend for anyone dining solo?

Uh oh..BIG question. Famously I love solo dining – though the ONLY flaw of solo dining is not being able to order excessive dishes to share so you can have one bite of everything and personally for me, I need to choose the menu items strategically, because I want my experience to be bomb.

My recommendation (right now) would be La Joya Cantina (Argentinian cuisine) in Lisbon. The ambiance, service + food = bomb. This place is actually always booked out because it is TINY, like it genuinely has only a few tables. I did a risky walk-in (though I went at the exact time of opening) and of course they were booked out, but because I was alone they set me up in the cute little window sill of the restaurant (perks of solo dining). I haven’t tried everything on the menu, but I don’t doubt it’s all BOMB.

I’m always encouraging solo dining and interestingly enough a lot of conversations I’ve had, people are too afraid to solo dine 🙁 I just love to sit in my own silence, people watch (maybe eavesdrop on the date next to me) & enjoy my goddamn bomb ass meal <3

Thanks to Marisa for taking the time to chat and providing images from her portfolio. You can follow her @marisasuen and find her work here. All photos were taken by Grace Tan, who you can find at @graceytt.