Au Ekbutr Udomphol, the designer behind label The Only Son, has been an elusive man to track down of late. With monsoonal floods inundating vast regions of his native Thailand, the designer would be forgiven for letting our interview slide. But with the same spirit of resolve and determination with which he has treated his career, Udomphol defied the pressures of natural disaster and came through. Balancing pleasure with professional shrewdness, after all, has ensured his survival in an often volatile industry. “You learn how to handle pressure in certain environments.”

Udomphol’s Thai childhood saw him absorbing iconic publications such as The Face, i-D and Dazed & Confused, windows into worlds completely alien to him. It was this reading material that convinced him to turn his hand to fashion design. He finessed his craft at the Sydney Institute of Technology, but his career really began when he was scouted on the Northern Beaches. Discovered by the boys behind Ksubi and modelling denim in the label’s now infamous rat-infested debut, by 2002 he was designing freelance for the label. Later, he would join the design team of Sass & Bide.

Despite the cultivation of his talents behind the scenes of ksubi and sass & bide, two labels so firmly entrenched within Sydney’s fashion folklore, Udomphol’s The Only Son is refreshingly international in its outlook and aesthetic. The brand, which could almost be deemed eponymous, taking as it does the literal translation of the designer’s Thai name, is enigmatic. Its subtle interplay of polarities shun geographical classification, instead catering to “strong, confident, open-minded individuals”. Its clean lines are classic and epicene, with an element of architectural nous in the construction. Soft, feminine draping meets with sharp, masculine tailoring. They are the type of clothes that you can see happily inhabiting the shared wardrobe of a young couple, taking turns with sculptured blazers and languidly draped jersey pieces. “Masculinity versus feminity,” Udomphol notes, “is appealing as it shows no boundaries for choices.”

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