Jayson Brunsdon came to fashion design by way of the drawing board. He began his career in Australia in the 1980s as a fashion illustrator, contributing to Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Follow Me and Dolly, and the illustrator's eye for line and silhouette has shaped everything he has made since.

From illustration he moved into editorial work, building a career as a fashion editor and stylist in London, Paris and New York for Vogue and Follow Me. In those years he also styled musicians, among them Michael Hutchence and INXS, and Prince. The experience gave him a working knowledge of how clothes read on camera and on stage, and of how a single image can carry a collection.

In the 1990s he returned to design proper as creative director of Morrissey, the Sydney label founded by Peter Morrissey. There he oversaw design as well as the styling of advertising campaigns and runway shows for several years, a broad brief that combined the product, the picture and the presentation.

In 2003 he launched the label under his own name. It was picked up quickly by both of Australia's leading department stores, David Jones and Myer, and internationally by Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Selfridges. Contemporary reporting placed the collection in more than ten countries, and in November 2005 he opened his first flagship boutique in Sydney, followed by stores across Australia and in Singapore. The label showed at New York Fashion Week for several seasons, alongside its presentations at Australian Fashion Week.

Brunsdon described the gap he set out to fill plainly: a wardrobe for a sophisticated woman who wanted neither the overtly girlish nor the overly revealing. The label's own description spoke of "modern elegance with a whiff of cinematic drama", drawing on women of strong individual style, and he named classic screen figures such as Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly, as well as his mother, Dorothy, among his references. The result was a line of day and evening wear built on wearable shapes refined with feminine detailing, and above all on the cocktail dress, which became his signature. He was also known for his work with wool, and was credited with helping raise the international profile of Australian merino.

His clients included Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, Kylie Minogue, Linda Evangelista and Naomi Watts. In 2007 he moved from David Jones to Myer, a change that drew national press attention; Myer's apparel director described his collection as "beautiful, wearable, age-less evening wear", and the move brought a first exclusive Myer collection followed by a day-wear range across a wider network of stores.

After the birth of his son in 2015, Brunsdon closed the fashion label to return to his first discipline. He now paints in gouache, pairing a dramatic black line with vivid colour, in a manner that openly acknowledges the great fashion illustrators René Gruau, Antonio Lopez and Tony Viramontes. His works are offered through Saatchi Art and his own studio.

He has not left clothing entirely. In 2021, six years after stepping away, he returned with a collection for the Australian retailer Harris Scarfe, conceived for a life spent more at home: knitwear given an edge with a zip, a puff sleeve or a flash of animal print, which he described as taking comfort and elevating it into something "sophisticated and chic and very easy to wear".

Across illustration, editorial, design direction and his own label, Brunsdon's work has kept to a consistent idea of glamour that is polished rather than loud, and grounded in drawing.