FASHION TALKS

Rolling With The Punches

Fashion followers will be able to get up close and personal with four very talented designers this month when the Fremantle Arts Centre once again hosts Fashion Talks, a series of live interviews that address all the ins and outs of the rag trade. Among the group of featured designers are Margi Robertson of Nom*D fame, Therese Rawsthorne, Kylie Radford and Richard Poulson of Morrison, and Flannel’s Kristy Lawrence, each bringing their own experiences and aesthetics to the stage.

Though they’re at very different ends of the spectrum when it comes to both experience and design sensibility, Robertson and Rawsthorne have very similar opinions about life in the fashion fast lane, and have each had to evolve to keep up with the industry they love.

Since establishing Nom*D as a knitwear label back in 1986, Robertson and her small team have gone from strength to strength, largely due to the fact that they’ve rolled with the punches and haven’t feared change, ducking and weaving to come out on top.

“1986 is when we first started doing knitwear and we continued doing knitwear until 1999, when we were invited to be part of the ‘New Zealand Four’ show for London Fashion Week,” Robertson begins when asked whether her initial vision for the label has changed. “We felt the necessity to present an entire collection. I’ve never been a fan of the knitted jumper and knitted skirt combo, even though we have done that from time to time, and that would have been our only option had we only done knitwear. So we embarked on this idea of going down the track of utilitarian garments.”

The fact that Robertson wasn’t afraid to move away from knitwear and into more comprehensive collections has ensured Nom*D’s longevity, and though the designer’s vision has changed slightly, her ethos and aesthetic have stayed the same.

“Our first four or five woven collections were based on that utilitarian concept, where we used fabrications that were hard-wearing, quite tough and often used for uniforms, depending on where our inspirations came from for each collection. There was always that element of wearability and one size fits all. Looking at our collection in 2011, we have full collections that have elements of that utilitarian feel. Things have definitely become a bit more ‘designed’, shall we say. It was a huge change. I felt quite fragile and teary about it but it was fate changing the direction of the label. It’s been huge since those days, the label has developed and so many things have happened since then.”

She may have far less experience than Robertson (having only launched her self titled label back in 2006), but Rawsthorne agrees that it’s important to move with the times, but always remain true to your own style. “My signature as a designer is innate, it develops and progresses but it doesn’t radically change,” she muses. “You learn more and you get to know your taste better and your understanding of how to make the things you’re thinking of becomes better. Fundamentally it’s the same woman and same muse.”

While Rawsthorne often opts for form fitting silhouettes that appeal to a fairly specific demographic, Robertson prefers to design for a more diverse group, focusing on garments that are easy to wear while remaining chic.

“We don’t have any formal structure to the clothes where you either fit it or you don’t,” Roberston says of Nom*D. “It’s just not our market here in New Zealand, we’re into clothes that are easy to wear. Wearability is something that we use as an explanation of what we do. It’s also for the person who is quite comfortable in themselves I think, and has the ability to wear something that might initially seem to be quite simple but when looking at it closer there’s that fine tuning that gives it a point of difference. It’s not for a customer who is looking to be the centre of attention; it’s for the customer who is quite happy to be cool on the outside.”

Both Robertson and Rawsthorne were honoured to be invited to take part in Fashion Talks, with Robertson in particular very interested to see whether Perth bears any similarities to her home town of Dunedin.

“I was quite honoured actually, it’s quite amazing. Perth is probably in a lot of ways similar to the isolated environment in New Zealand, even more so being in Dunedin because most people in fashion live in Auckland because that’s where the media is. I’m quite happy being in Dunedin, being away from all that and touching on it every so often. I wonder whether Perth is like that. There’s some great designers that have come out of Perth. Isolation allows you to be more individualistic and do what you believe in rather than being influenced by what’s going on. Living in a city like Dunedin, you can do your own thing. People are very accepting here.”

Find out more about Robertson and Rawsthorne’s experiences when they take to the stage at the Fremantle Arts Centre this month; tickets for Fashion Talks can be purchased via fac.org.au or by calling the FAC on (08) 9432 9555.

_EMMA BERGMEIER