Image: Lydia Pearson (right) mentoring young designers at the Queensland University of Technology.

Special announcement !  

This episode marks the end of Season 1 of the Fashion Wayfinder podcast… BUT I invite you to join the mailing list …and stay tuned for Season 2 !!!

Download my free guide: 10 Practices of a Fashion Wayfinder, and you will automatically be added to the Fashion Wayfinder insider mailing list 😉

EPISODE 10: Bringing knowledge from the international fashion stage to the classroom.  

It is my absolute pleasure to share this special episode with great Australian designer, Lydia Pearson.

Lydia has been a fashion designer and entrepreneur from a young age. She speaks about her lifelong passion for clothing and dressing up, and starting her first label with little knowledge of the fashion industry.

In 1989 Lydia Pearson and Pamela Easton began their collaborative fashion brand, Easton Pearson, which has become an important part of Australian fashion culture. Their beautiful fashion collections were inspired by their love of vintage garments, art and craft. Lydia and Pam built strong connections with artisan producers in India and sold their fashion collections around the world.

Fast forward to 2018, Lydia is now a fashion lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology. Her mission is to help nurture and support young local talent. She plans to establish a space and structure to foster artisanal designers and makers, and to help them develop sustainable businesses.

In this episode:

• Lydia’s childhood in Toowoomba and her passion for clothing and textiles.
• Studying law and French at university before following her heart to become a designer.
• Formative creative times in Sydney – Stranded nightclub, and Jenny Kee’s Flamingo Park boutique.
• Establishing her label in Brisbane. Working long hours and growing her brand through creative experimentation and building industry relationships.
• Establishing a partnership with Pamela Easton and bringing together their complimentary skill sets. How working collaboratively “is like a dance”. Lydia’s talks about the pros and cons.
• Easton Pearson collections began with a colour palette and a loose concept. Each collection was an evolution of the previous seasons. The garments were designed to be timeless.
• Easton Pearson archive has been acquired by the Museum of Brisbane. An exhibition is being planned for late 2018.
• Lydia’s work teaching at the Queensland University of Technology and her goal to foster talent and create opportunities for local designers and makers.
• Common mistakes she sees designers & entrepreneurs make.
• Qualities she considers essential to succeed in the fashion industry: a thick skin, a really clear vision, tenacity, passion, flexibility.
• Why Lydia believes individual style is more important than trend driven fashion.

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Image: Easton Pearson presentation in Paris, 2006.

Photo: Myra and I chatting at Old Friends Coffee in Ubud, Indonesia.

Respecting People and The Planet through Fashion.

Bali based, Myra Juliarti, is the designer and founder of the brand, Siji. Her mission is to create gender fluid and environmentally sustainable fashion. Siji eschews stereotyping of people through fashion and provides timeless and poetic pieces. Siji customers are often artists who like to buy local and independent brands.

Myra herself is a vegan and an environmental engineering graduate. She describes herself as an introvert, and her designs are inspired by introversion. I was very happy for the opportunity to learn more about her approach to design over coffee in Ubud :).

In this episode:

Part 1 – Reflections on Gender Fluid Design

• Sally Edwards – menswear designer and academic.
• Mark Neighbour – patternmaker, designer and academic.
• Menswear has very specific details and design codes.
• Is gender neutral clothing a marketing strategy? or is it challenging norms in society and fashion?

Part 2 – Siji, a gender fluid & sustainable fashion brand

• Siji began in Jakarta in 2011, and re-established in Bali in 2013 as a sustainable fashion brand.
• Myra and her sister run the business together.
• Myra studied environmental engineering before studying fashion design.
• Siji uses natural fibres and minimally processed fabrics. They also employ enzyme washes and hand-painting of fabrics. It is a leather-free brand.
• Siji shapes are designed to be comfortable and not provocative. The brand offers fashion that is durable and designed to be worn often.
• Myra translates her personal values into the designs and she aims to gently educate her customers about more sustainable fashion.
• Myra focuses on fashion as a vehicle for positive change, and sees increased support for local and independent fashion in Indonesia.
• Pasar-Pasaran – Biannual art/craft market for indie designers and local makers in Bali.
• Biasa – Indonesian based fashion brand by Italian designer, Susanna Perini.

Right-click here and save as to download this episode to your computer.

See more from Siji >> @akusiji

Image: Siji Street Wear Daily Outfit:
1. Stripes Jumpsuit
2. Canvas Shoes
100% Cotton, Hand Printed, One Size, Unisex

Photo: a snapshot from Bianca Mavrick’s studio, 2018.

Fine Arts Jewellery Practice meets Industrial Design Innovation

Bianca Mavrick’s bold, colourful jewellery is both joyful and luxurious. Bianca studied industrial design and fine-arts jewellery making, and she combines these two fields of knowledge in her unique and beautiful design signature.

Bianca is based in Brisbane, Australia. Her story is a great example of how in today’s digitally connected world, it is possible to be based anywhere and grow an international brand and audience. American retailer, Anthropologie, discovered Bianca’s jewellery via Instagram !

In this episode:

• How studying industrial design shaped her design thinking and approach to materials and scaling production.
• Learning technical jewellery making skills in her fine-arts degree.
• Receiving an arts grant on graduation and setting up her label.
• Connecting to her first stockists at a design market in Melbourne.
• Learning to wholesale and produce in quantity.
• Keeping a part-time job when she began her business.
• Anthropologie found her work on Instagram and placed a large wholesale order.
• Learning to go with the flow and not put too much pressure on herself.
• Finding moments of quiet during the operation of her business to play and innovate.
• A strong design signature is important and must come from within.
• You cannot control others copying your work, but you must evolve and push your own work.
• A loyal customer base and sales are more important than Instagram likes.
• Importance of being resilient and making sacrifices in order to be a creative entrepreneur.
• Bianca is now represented in an international showroom.

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See more from Bianca >> biancamavrick.com

Photo: Kinship collection by Bianca Mavrick

Image: Linda Nguyen in the TLC Space, Brisbane 2017.

Building a global community for independent designers, artists and makers.

Linda Nguyen and Thea Blocksidge work under the label name TLC (Thea X Linda Collaboration).  Thea and Linda have built their brand, not only with their own fashion designs, but also through art, craft, styling and curation — and building creative community 🙂 !

Linda and Thea stage pop-up shops and also have an online store. Their future vision is to build a global community and platform for independent designers, artists and makers to showcase their work.

In this episode:

• The importance of collaboration and building a creative network.
• How face-to-face interaction with customers in a retail environment is motivating.
• Thea and Linda were fashion students together and went on exchange to India.
• They began designing collaboratively for a student-run pop-up shop called The Fleet Store.
• Designing and being inspired by remnant fabrics, secondhand and found materials.
• How sub-tropical weather influences TLC designs.
• Comfort and longevity are important priorities for TLC designs.
• Their sourcing and buying trip to Japan.
• Using Instagram for sales, creative expression and exploration.
• Linda’s work for former Sydney fashion brand, Vanishing Elephant.
• Thea’s visual art and her residency in California.
• The success of TLC’s pop-up space and engaging with people yearning for independent work in a climate of multinational fashion brands.
• Thea and Linda’s great advice for emerging or aspiring designers – start small, focus on quality, gauge the market and stay true to yourself!
• Fashion is joyful and a language of identity.

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See more from TLC >> tlcstore.co

Photo: Seala 🐚✨ in @bien______ and @sealalokollojewellery 

Photo: Siobhan Denniss at Siobhan and Nuala Garment Factory in Denpasar, Bali, 2017.

Ethical garment manufacturing for small and emerging designers.

Australian sisters, Siobhan and Nuala Denniss, are the owners of an ethical garment manufacturing business in Bali, Indonesia. I spoke to Siobhan at her factory in Denpasar. Siobhan talks about how they began their business, and their mission to serve small and emerging designers. Their clients are based in Australia, North America and Europe.

In this episode:

• Why Bali is a good location for garment manufacturing, particularly for Australian designers.
• Issues that designers face in production, such as quality control and minimum order quantities.
• Siobhan and Nuala’s production workshops – designed to provide practical education about the process of manufacturing. Details on their website: siobhanandnuala.com
• Why specification sheets and technical packs are important.
• The process of toiling, sampling and producing a fashion garment.
• Different clients and types of garments they manufacture – from childrenswear to formalwear.
• How fabric impacts the production cost.
• Siobhan’s motivation to look after her workers and their families, with ethical working conditions and providing a living wage.
• Sustainable strategies employed in their factory to reduce energy use and waste.

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Siobhan & Nuala Garment Factory >> website

Photo: Norma Moi and I at Jakarta Fashion Week, 2017.

Infusing Modestwear with Couture and History.

Jakarta based, Norma Moi, began her career in fashion as a make-up artist. Today her fashion brand, Norma Hauri, is internationally celebrated for its couture-inspired shapes and details, mixed with romantic historical references and sleek urban attitude.

I caught up with Norma over lunch in a bustling restaurant in the midst of Jakarta Fashion Week. She talks about the origin of her label, her creative process and the importance of having a good team.

In this episode:

• How Norma gained experience in fashion through her work as a make-up artist.
• The Norma Hauri brand stood out for its distinctive style in the modestwear market.
• Norma’s favourite designers: Christian Dior, Cristobal Balenciaga, Madame Gres, Madeleine Vionnet, Alexander McQueen, John Galliano…
• Her latest collection, inspired by ancient Egyptian queen, Nefertiti.
• As a fashion designer you need to have a good team. You cannot do it by yourself.
• Breaking-down the catwalk looks into wearable products for her customers.
• Norma Hauri collections are for all women. Norma believes there is no religion in fashion.
• Using herself to model her garments on Instagram increases sales because her customers can relate to her, rather than professional models.
• Quality fabrics and production are very important for her brand.
• Ramadan is a celebration, and an occasion to buy and wear new fashion.
• Production and quality control is the biggest challenge for Norma’s brand.
• Natali Tjahjadi, Bali based garment manufacturer. CV Widya Triguna > wtgbali.com

Right-click here and save as to download this episode to your computer.

See more from Norma >> @normahauri

Photos: ‘Amarna’ SS18 by Norma Hauri

Photo: Dr Alice Payne at the Queensland University of Technology.

The future of fashion looks hopeful.

In honour of Fashion Revolution Week, I invited my colleague, Dr Alice Payne, to share some of her research and reflections on fashion and sustainability.

Alice is a fashion academic at the Queensland University of Technology. Her research interests include the fashion design process, the mass-market fashion industry, and the problem of design for sustainability within the fashion context.

Alice is a maker, a teacher and an author, and she talks about how the slow & local fashion approaches are weaving together with the mass-market & high-tech advances in fashion.

After 10 years working and researching in the area of sustainable fashion, Alice says she is hopeful about the future.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Alice’s earliest fashion memories and her mum’s vintage clothing.
• How her path in fashion began at art school but later led to PhD research focused on the mass-market.
• ‘A History of Costume in The West’ by Francois Boucher
• Ancient garments: kirtle & cotehardie.
• Xuly Bet, fashion brand.
• Meriel Chamberlain, founder of Full Circle Fibres.
• ‘Emotionally Durable Design: Objects, Experiences and Empathy’ by Jonathan Chapman.
• H&M and closed loop recycling.
• Design theorists, Tony Fry & Anne-Marie Willis.
• The potential of fashion design to be an agent of change.
• Global connections in the area of sustainable fashion.
• Ontological design – how we are designed by the things we design.
• How might we consider different approaches to fashion design?
• Textiles Environment Design (TED) group and their TED TEN Design Strategies.
• Alice’s article, ‘Fashion Futuring in the Anthropocene: Sustainable Fashion as “Taming” and “Rewilding”‘ published in Fashion Theory.

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See more from Alice >> alicepayne.com

Photo: ‘Grow-Shrink-and-Turncoat’, modular fashion design by Alice Payne.

Photo: The inaugural Australia Awards Indonesia Fashion & Textiles program, post-course workshop in Bali, 2016.

Sorry friends! I am taking a two week break from the podcast because I currently have my hands very full! …  leading a group of 25 Indonesian fashion designers through a two week training program here in Australia.

It is an Australian Government scholarship program, called Australia Awards. The objective is to teach these bright and creative Indonesian designers about the international fashion market. I organise workshops, site-visits and many industry guests and events. The program involves travelling to different cities in Australia.

Due to my busyness, and in lieu of an episode, I invite you to read an article I wrote last year for Garland Magazine about two amazing designers from one of the previous programs, Lenny Agustin and Novita Yunus. These two passionate designers and inspiring business women transform traditional crafts into contemporary fashion.

You can follow my Indonesian fashion adventures on my personal Instagram: @carlavanlunn

I promise I will be back with more podcasts in two weeks !

xx

Photo: Gail Sorronda and I, hanging out in her spaceship 🙂

Connecting the spiritual and material worlds through fashion.

Australian designer, Gail Sorronda, launched her cult label in 2005 with her graduate collection, “Angel at my Table”. Through her brand, Gail channels her spiritual life and emotions into material form.  Gail’s work is characterised by her use of black and white, and sculptural, dramatic shapes.

Her creative work extends beyond garments into interior design, fashion performance and collaborations — with artists, dance companies and big brands, such as Target and Disney.

In this interview Gail gives some great advice to all of us creators and designers – to focus & create from our own knowledge and curiosity, and avoid feeling overwhelmed in this noisy world of fashion.

In this episode:

• Gail’s experience as a design student and her many part-time jobs and side-hustles.
• The importance of getting experience, building your network and training your eye.
• How Gail won the Mercedes-Benz Start Up competition with her graduate collection and went on to show at Australian Fashion Week & secure Australian & international stockists.
• How working with a patternmaker is a creative collaboration, but as a designer you still need a clear vision of what you want.
• Gail’s experience working as a model in Paris. When she went to the Balenciaga casting she was too nervous to show her design portfolio to Nicholas Ghesquiere.
• Gail prefers to design on her own body and experiment with shapes and fabric, rather than designing with sketches or technical drawings. The tactile experience and ideas that are born out of play and chance are important.
• Gail considers her retail store her spaceship, but it is still down-to-earth and customer service is paramount.
• The highlights and challenges of being an independent designer.

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See more from Gail >> gailsorronda.com

Photo: Throwback to Mark Neighbour and I at iD Dunedin Fashion Week.  Image credit: Otago Daily Times.

The importance of construction and designing for the body.

Mark Neighbour is a patternmaker, designer and fashion lecturer. Mark and I discuss clothing and construction, and how the technical aspects of making, and wearing clothes on the body, informs his own design work and his teaching. Learn about his early influences, growing up in country Australia, which led him to his lifelong love affair with clothing and its construction. Listen to Mark’s design advice for fashion students and makers.

In this episode:

• Mark’s early fashion and design influences growing up in a country town, and being a fashion student in the 1980s.
• His first jobs in the fashion industry and some Brisbane fashion history.
• The designers who have been the biggest influence on Mark’s work: Paul Poiret, Madeleine Vionnet, Elsa Schiaparelli, Halston, Cristobal Balenciaga, Azzedine Alaia.
• The importance of construction details in designing clothing, and how you should look at your own wardrobe for inspiration.
• Knowing who you are designing for, and putting your personal style into your designs.
• Designing for the imperfect human body and for comfort, rather than fashion for slim people on social media. Why Cristobal Balenciaga liked couture clients with bellies.
• What gets Mark Neighbour out of bed in the morning 🙂

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