Articles - 30 March 2006

Crafted fashion

Review by Raymond Thomas Hines

Fashion is a tricky and volatile playground. With multiple layers and forms consisting of commercial and non-commercial layers, it echoes the very garments it thrives upon. The results are a spectrum of designs ranging from en mass ready-to-wear goods through to the artistry of one-off, crafted pieces. The latter thrives within Australia's artistic and economic climate despite burdening financial restrictions and a popular focus on the mass produced sector, (or pret-a-portê) while its blend of imagination, luxury, and dexterous skill drives its readily available brethren into being.

Such high-end fashion doesn't necessarily find itself on catwalks or in mainstream fashion publications though. Despite popular misconception, these sources often profile mass-produced garments masquerading as couture. So where does Australian high-end fashion thrive? Like most discerning fashionistas you'll undoubtedly wander through lesser-known alleys, galleries, or web pages in search of such pieces. They blossom in the shadow of larger commercial showcases such as L'Oreal or Mercedes fashion weeks, exploring facets of the industry overlooked by such showcases - craft, artistry, or imagination. These artesans produce works breathing vision and clarity into an industry conventionally built on hard glamour and cash.

Melbourne-based artesan Naomi Tettmann is one such designer. Featured recently in the Couture Dreaming exhibition held at Flinders' Lane Gallery, Melbourne, her work treads the volatile waters where fashion and craft collide. Interested in performance and artistic modes of display, she has developed a niche for herself thriving on high calibre artistry. Working with one short term artists' space alongside other small productions has taught her to replace expectations of salary with an exploration of visionary pieces not necessarily viable within the industry's commercial sectors. With patience, deliberation, unique pattern making skills, and an eye for textile details, she's created tactile and ephemeral objects demonstrating that elusive term: fashion de luxe. She says on the topic that:

From a single shape and block come a myriad ideas flowing from each other - jackets and frocks retaining their couture birthing place, to pared down garments blended to Melbourne's streets and laneways ... Without the initial artistic foundation, the wearable versions are harder to achieve.

Diversifying garment patterns and ideas while keeping tight reigns on pieces that go into production, Watts forges a balance between these two worlds. Why? So they're able to feed each other and sustain her productivity as a craftsperson. Yes, the economic benefit from such works is limited. With the focus on artistry and skill devoted to true couture, such pieces are the estranged sisters of the dominant fashion festivals. Grants and sponsorship opportunities remain few, while private benefactors are a dying breed. Yet this ethos moves beyond the boundaries of the clothing arena alone. It also incorporates all aspects of elite apparel and accessories, a fact demonstrated by Melbourne shoe makers Preston Zly Designs.

For this design duo, such artistry allows the development of artistic concepts unviable on a commercial or wholesale basis. This allows them to push the boundaries of their work, discovering techniques and creative drives potentially useable, (albeit in a slightly diluted manner), within wholesale collections.

Regarding the growth and sustainability of the crafted fashion sector, Preston Zly stated that the way forward seems to be via traditional routes such as wholesaling or using fashion and PR agencies for commercial success. Zly says,

Our experience shows there is an alternate route. Developing a loyal and cult-like following can be as financially lucrative or more so than the traditional wholesale model. This also allows for the more rewarding experience of dealing with your loyal clientele directly. I imagine that most of the designers represented in Couture Dreaming would be in a similar situation.

Notice anything here? Focusing on the relationship between maker and buyer alongside a keen promotion of the skills necessary to make both viable, these fashionistas recapture the notion of conventional craft in spades.

Yet another of this brood, Anastasia La Fey remarked on the topic that:

I guess the best analogy is like a sculptor working with stone ... chipping away the outside to reveal the form that resides within the stone. I'm simply manipulating cloth to reveal its true form. I approach my work as a sculpting of fabric, and the best 'gallery', to display it on is the human body.

As with all of these artisans, La Fey works with cloth and its inherent form rather than the newer technologies of mass production. Unlike the so-called 'high-fashion', of today's market, she and those like her work with traditional pattern making techniques and their own dexterous skill. The results are garments of remarkable thought, beauty, and elegance. As with Tettman and Preston Zly, her pieces are lyrical and often influenced by other forms of the arts - music, painting, dance. The results are pieces that have an air of majestic beauty and vision to them. Pieces that, like the paint of the artists' brush they echo, have the power to mould cloth into the stuff of our dreams. Viewing these garments and others like them, it becomes possible to pierce through the layers of the fashion industry and gain an ultimate understanding of the foundation or fabric upon which it thrives. Not the thin veneer of glamour promoted by many a fashion week internationally, but the thought-provoking and painstakingly crafted visions of its budding artisans. Through these pieces, the boundaries between imagination and skill collide and we're afforded an invaluable glimpse into the passion upon which creativity thrives.

Raymond Thomas Hines   April 2006

Raymond Thomas Hines received his Bachelor in Art History and Theory through the College of Fine Arts. He writes for numerous national and internationally distributed publications with a specific focus on Australian fashion theory.