When Sydney fashion designer Mariam Seddiq reflects on her latest collection at Australian Fashion Week, she sees herself – literally.

It’s not just a reflection of her face in the signature sunglasses worn on every model as they stomped the runway on Wednesday night.

Her pieces are an accumulation of the world the Sydney designer lives and breathes.

“I wanted the women to be like a reflection of me and representing my art, my craft,” she told NewsWire.

This week, Seddiq presented Echoes, her 10th collection at Australian Fashion Week, held in Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art.

Every garment and accessory that featured this week was a reflection of her own story, which has stretched from Sydney to Florence.

“(The models) were wearing my signature look – with the sunnies,” she said. “They were all different versions of me, of what I’d want to wear and make for myself.”

Seddiq has dressed the modern woman for more than a decade, both on Australian soil and on red carpets and runways worldwide.

With training from the Accademia Italiana Arte – Moda Design in Florence and years of honing her craft in Sydney, her recognisable designs have been worn by the likes of Bec Judd, Rita Ora and Kylie Minogue.

This latest collection offers her expertise in delicate draping and punchy silhouettes in spades, with sheer mesh softly layered like liquid and shards of leather fringe splintering into different directions with every step, mimicking ostrich feathers.

Other garments are crafted using deadstock fabric and handpainted, giving each piece a unique and one-of-a-kind finish.

For Seddiq, the collection is pieces of wearable art, drawing from the juxtaposition of structure and fluidity, and designed from her studio in Sydney.

But she doesn’t do it alone.

Behind the scenes are her dedicated design team, who are offered the opportunity to stretch their wings and experiment with freedom.

Seddiq also embraces the mistakes that come along the way.

“I don‘t design the whole collection, because the process is the magical part where we make mistakes,” she said.

“Sometimes my staff freak out that they’ve made a mistake, and I freak out that it’s so amazing.”

She said she encourages her team to roll with the punches, even if they’re “freaking out” about a potential misstep.

“So we’re not in trouble?” her staff would sometimes ask.

“No, no! Let’s roll with this,” she’d reply.

While she has been a fixture of Australian Fashion Week for a decade, she’s already looking ahead.

And there’s a lot of change hurdling towards the fashion industry, including the threat of new tech like AI.

The call for AI in the fashion industry has hung over the industry like a dark cloud, with some designers rejecting the use of it entirely.

Others, such as Melbourne-based designer Karla Špetić, who used the technology to generate slogans for her T-shirts, are choosing to embrace it.

Survey data from Roy Morgan suggests a growing majority of Australians see problems with AI, with 20 per cent of afraid it may weaken independent thought and creativity.

The rise of AI has raised the back of many designers, who are afraid it will cause the entire industry to unravel.

But Seddiq isn’t worried – not with her pieces, anyway.

“It’s crazy sh*t we’re seeing, but I don’t think it will ever change the handicraft of the things I do,” she told NewsWire.

“The customer – if they’re into the couture side of things – there’s no way AI can replace that.

“Those textures, they’re all hand-done, so there’s no way a machine can do it.”

Despite rapidly-evolving technology looming, Seddiq said the future of homegrown fashion is bright – as long as emerging designers are “recognised and nurtured” by the Australian Fashion Council and embraced by other designers.

She said designers across the country are starting to come together and form a community – a move she wants to see grow in the future.

“(The designers are) kind of coming together and supporting each other,” she said.

“I mean, there’s still a long way to go with that, but I see a lot of it changing and we’re becoming a community.”

It’s the biggest change she has seen in the fashion industry over the past decade, but hopes more developments are on the way.

“In the next 10 years, I think there’ll be more and more Australian designers recognised overseas,” she said.

“I think if there’s good leaders, the future is very, very promising.”