In 2022, WA-ring founder and designer Annette Sax debuted her label on the runway at Melbourne Fashion Festival.

Since then, she's brought out another collection and shown once again Melbourne Fashion Festival.

However, it was her debut collection in 2022 which caught the eye of Wiradjuri artistic director of the Australian Dance Theatre, Daniel Riley.

Upon seeing the collection he reached out to the Taungurung artist and fashion designer to see if she would be open to collaborating on costume design for the Australian Ballet.

Sax said to be asked to collaborate was a "magic moment" for her.

"To be asked by Dan to be part of this amazing collaboration is a magic moment. The experiences that I've had I feel like it's changed my life," she said.

"As an Aboriginal woman who is in her mid-50s, to be given this opportunity is pivotal in my career.

"And it shows me and it shows my family, and it shows our mob that we can aspire to work together with other blackfellas and we can create and share our stories through the performing arts."

Sax designed costumes for the Australian Ballet's Identity season, specifically Riley's choreographed show THE HUM.

Riley said THE HUM is a celebration of the individual artist as part of a broader creative ecosystem of shared knowledge, emotion and energy.

"THE HUM is texture, feeling, emotion, the hum of the land, the communal energetic exchange between an audience and performers," he said.

"It's the identity of the relationship between those four important elements.

"It asks, 'how do we go beyond our contractual obligations as performer or audience member to find a place of true understanding and reciprocity?'"

Sax, who is also the business owner of Yarn Strong Sista an Aboriginal education consultancy, said she worked with the Australian Ballet wardrobe department to merge her designs with the story of THE HUM.

Together with the wardrobe department, they began with the dancers trying on bits and pieces from Sax's first WA-ring collection.

"It was great because it really was about connecting the fabric, the styles and making it (the dancers') own and connecting with their own identity," she said.

"They tried on the garments and would wear the waterfall vest, backwards for example.

"One dancer changed the fit and flare dress into a skirt, I loved that there was this whole collaboration with the costumes."

For the print on the costumes, Sax's own ochre paintings were used through screen printing.

"It was a really interesting process because I wanted to be able to use our natural pigments from Country," Sax said.

"So I went out on Country and I collected ochres from where Uncle Roy Patterson, a Taungurung Elder, had taught me where to collection and how to collect," she said.

"I invited the ADT (Australian Dance Theatre) dancers and Australian Ballet dancers, I had a little workshop with them.

"They helped grind the ochres and that was then used to be screen printed onto the fabrics."

After a three to four month process, the costumes were officially finalised for the dancers to take to the stage.

Adornments worn by dancers in THE HUM were created by Gamilaroi Ularoi artists Priscilla Reid-Loynes and Sara Loynes.

After a successful showing in Eora (Sydney) during May, THE HUM will be shown in Naarm (Melbourne) at Arts Centre Melbourne from June 16 to 24.