The Fresh Prints.(Buyers guide)(Brief article)

Byline: editor: Sally Singer Florence Kane

An Aussie artist's canvases are his bold, color-rich dresses.

People have said, 'You grew up in Australia; what do you know about fashion?'" says artist, stylist, and now designer Michael Angel. "I say, 'Actually, I learned from the best.'"

He didn't train directly with them, but Angel did get something of an informal education from the likes of Yohji Yamamoto, Jil Sander, and Rei Kawakubo while working as a window designer (and later style director) at SABA, the upscale boutique that sold these groundbreaking labels in his hometown of Melbourne. "It was a great way for me to understand color, texture, fabrication, silhouette," he explains.

Angel went on to join Diesel in London and Oakley in California. Wherever his work took him, Angel (now based in Manhattan) kept making digital art with hopes to use it in his own collection. "It was my little escape," he says. "I'd built up a mass ...