It started over coffee in a local cafe.
Phoebe and I sat down for what could have been a tidy conversation about FOKE. Instead, we talked about all things Holly. Life. Loss. Art. Colour. The strange turns that lead you somewhere you never expected to be.
It was the kind of conversation where you forget somebody is taking notes.
There were tears. But that’s okay. Life has given me plenty of reasons to shed them.
Coffee first. Article second.
There was no polished founder speech and no attempt to make the story neater than it really was. We talked about grief, creativity and what happens when life changes your body, your plans and the way you see everything.
We also talked about FOKE: how drawing brought me back to myself, why colour matters so much, and why I want clothes to make room for real women living actual lives.
Phoebe listened for the person behind the clothes, and that changed the whole story.
What she made from that conversation
The article Phoebe wrote for BILLY Magazine was thoughtful, generous and incredibly honest. It held the joyful parts and the difficult parts together without trying to turn either into a neat little lesson.
Seeing it in print was a genuine pinch-me moment. BILLY is made here in the Macedon Ranges, so being seen by the creative community closest to home felt especially meaningful.
Read the full feature
Where Colour Lives. Words: Phoebe Hartley. Photos: Holly Clinton. First published in BILLY Magazine, Issue 04 Flora, September 2026. Republished with permission.
Artist and designer Holly Clinton is bringing colour and joy to the world with boldly patterned clothing designed for real bodies.
Holly Clinton is many things — artist, designer, photographer, glass-blower, gardener, partner, mother, sister, daughter — but one thing she’s certainly not, is beige. “Colour’s always been in my life, I just love it,” says the 45-year-old, as she sips coffee in Woodend’s Oak & Stone cafe. “I like to be different. I’ve never strived to be like everyone else.”
Holly grew up on beef and sheep farms in Mickleham and Bacchus Marsh, before moving to Ballarat to study Fine Arts at university. She followed her older sister, Amber, to the Macedon Ranges 25 years ago, and didn’t look back. “This place has always felt like home to me,” Holly says. She now lives on Taungurung and Dja Dja Wurrung Country in Kyneton, with her partner Chris, and their eight-year-old daughter Olive.
Creativity is in Holly’s blood. “My grandma Joan was an artist all her life… and she wasn’t scared to be herself,” Holly says. “She used to take Amber and I — when we were little kids — to her life drawing classes in the city, so we just sort of grew up around that world.”
Taking inspiration from nature, Holly draws digitally on an iPad. “I just take it to a park, or go sit by a lake or something, and then I can just completely tune out the world.” Using bold, colourful strokes, she creates floral and abstract patterns to sell as art prints and, now, as clothing.
In August 2025, she launched FOKE — a print-led clothing label featuring her own eye-catching artwork, designed to offer a bit of colour and joy to the wearer. “There’s others out there that don’t want to look beige,” Holly says. “And they’re okay expressing their personality through their clothing, and not scared to do it.”
Her pieces are created to feel good and fit real bodies. “I just wanted to make a dress that would fit me,” she explains, “and part of that is to do with my double mastectomy, but also just having a normal-sized, plus-sized body — so I just wanted that to be available to anyone that wanted to live a bit more boldly, and not care what people think, and get out of the beige rut and just express themselves that way.”
She wants folks to feel empowered when they wear her designs. “I want them to feel amazing,” she says with a smile. “And I don’t care if they’re wearing it to swimming lessons, or to the Logies — I just want them to feel incredible, and like they’re worth it.”
She says her ultimate aim is to bring people together: “A community of people that all want to experience the same thing, and that’s just being themselves, and wearing whatever they want, and embracing life — because it’s so important to just live in the moment.”
“It’s so important to just live in the moment.”
Holly’s experience of loss and grief informed her decision to launch her own creative business. Her sister Amber died in 2020 after a long battle with cancer. Her beloved stepfather died suddenly of a heart attack in 2023, and she lost a close friend in between. And she’s had her own experience with breast cancer. “I feel like it’s sort of given me this new lens,” Holly says. “Part of FOKE is me wanting to encourage women to live their best life, and to do it now and not to wait.”
Creativity comes to Holly when she manages to grab moments away from everyday life. “I have a little studio in the backyard, underneath the trees and in amongst the garden,” she says. “You’re away from the laundry, you’re away from the dishes, you’re out of that world for a little bit.”
She decorates her creative space with things that remind her of loved ones, and inspire her to keep going. “I’ve got some of my grandma’s paintings around, some of my daughter’s paintings, a photo of my sister, a photo of my stepdad,” she says. “I’m living a life that they couldn’t live as well, and I’m very aware of that.”
When she’s not in the studio, she loves being out in nature. “I love just being immersed in the garden. It’s like my therapy as well — it creates another realm that you can go to, to bring a quiet mind.” It’s not surprising then that floral designs dominate Holly’s artwork. “That’s always what I draw,” she says. “It’s where colour lives, it’s where I get a lot of my inspiration.”
The garden view from her studio window holds special significance for Holly. “I call it my memory garden, because it has plants from each part of my life,” she says. “When my sister was diagnosed, I bought her a breast cancer rose, which sat out the front of her house. I’ve taken so many cuttings off it and given it to family, because that is Amber’s rose. So that grows right outside my window.”
Holly says loss has actually given her momentum. “It gives you a new perspective on your life and what’s important,” she says. “So I make it my mission now to live for them, and tick things off that I want to do, because that’s what they would have wanted.”
For now, this passionate artist is enjoying living in the moment, rather than being driven by big ambition. “I’m just happy to be creating, and bringing some joy to people’s lives.”
SEE THE MAGAZINE PAGES (PDF) →
Then we made a tote
The story did not end with the article. BILLY and FOKE went on to collaborate on a tote bag, bringing BILLY’s love of local stories together with FOKE colour and artwork.
I love that the collaboration grew from a real conversation. Coffee became an article. The article became a relationship. Then somehow, delightfully, that relationship became something you could sling over your shoulder.
That feels very FOKE to me.
Meet BILLY
BILLY is a free, print-only magazine. Grab a copy of your own from one of its stockists across the Macedon Ranges and Daylesford region, and support local storytelling.
FIND BILLY MAGAZINE + STOCKISTS →
SEE THE BILLY × FOKE TOTE COLLABORATION →
Thank you, Phoebe, for the coffee, the questions, the beautiful article and everything that followed.
Holly x
