Street Style: Jacqueline
Jac+ Jack designer Jacqueline ‘Jac’ Hunt, photographed outside of the VAMFF fashion parades at Docklands. Wearing Jac+ Jack shirt, Issey Miyake skirt and Clergerie sandals.
Street Style: Nicole
Nicole, Photographed outside of the VAMFF fashion parades at Docklands. Wearing Strateas Carlucci.
Street Style London
The men of London turned it on as our intrepid photographer hit the streets to document the best looks of the season during a fly-in, fly-out visit as the UK winter turns to spring: the kilt gets an urban makeover, tan shoes retain their dominance and a vermillion trench pops in a sea of navy.
Street Style: Dallas
Dallas, photographed on Little Bourke Street wearing a top from India, Kinki Gerlinki skirt and silver shoes from Soles.
Makers Of Melbourne Fashion Panel - VAMFF Cultural Event
Makers of Melbourne kicked off its annual series of men’s style discussions with a bang on Tuesday night, hosting tailoring, literature, design and arts luminaries from London, New York, Melbourne and Sydney – each with a unique take on the historical, social and cultural context of men’s fashion.
Journalist Sarina Lewis from Makers Of Melbourne moderated the style panel discussion, 'Fashion Maketh The Man', hosted by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), as part of the 2014 Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival cultural program.
Panelists included Roger Leong, curator fashion and textiles from the National Gallery of Victoria; Sydney-based bespoke tailor John Cutler; fashion and denim designer Roy Christou; celebrity stylist Philip Boon; plus online via Skype, author of 'The Coat Route' Meg Lukens Noonan (USA), and from Grenson shoes, Tim Little (UK).
A few curious facts we took away from the 90-minute panel discussion:
1. Man’s current obsession with body sculpting finds an echo in the original Dandies who padded the breast and shoulders of their suits to provide the classic ‘V’ shape, a look to denote masculinity.
2. The term ‘bespoke’ originates from the traditional idea that a fabric has been spoken for by a client – be+spoke. It is much more than the idea of made-to-measure, pointing to a relationship and exchange between tailor and client.
3. Buttons changed, not only approaches to tailoring, but the very fabric of society: the importance of children in the modern family is said to have occurred as a direct result of reduced baby mortality rates courtesy of clothing and blankets that could be buttoned for extra warmth. Apparently we only grew attached when we knew we could keep ‘em alive!
Keep abreast as Makers of Melbourne continues throughout the year to profile the cultural cogs in the Melbourne landscape – personalities that influence how we dress, and how we think of ourselves and our city.
The Event: Future Music Festival 2014
Not even temperatures of over 30 degrees could keep the dance music fans away from Melbourne’s leg of the Future Music Festival, held on Sunday the 8th of March. Setting up temporary camp at Flemington racecourse, Future punters were treated to scorching afternoon sets by Pharrell Williams, last year’s Triple J Hottest 100 winners Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Tinie Tempah and Melbourne’s own Cut Copy.
As the sun started to set, London based outfit Rudimental got the hot and bothered crowd moving and inspired a mass sing-along to their hit ‘Feel the Love’. They were followed up by headliners Phoenix, who had everyone dancing as they played their way through a setlist of songs including hits from 2009’s ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix’ and last year's ‘Bankrupt’.
Pharrell
Cut Copy
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Rudimental
Tinie Tempah
Phoenix
Interview: Christopher Pickings
“Global economics and the way things are happening in the world are changing people’s perceptions on what quality is. People are wanting to see the craft, to see an actual basis of quality behind something that’s expensive.”
- Christopher Pickings
Legitimacy is written all over Chris Pickings. Born and raised in Newcastle, England, he looks every bit the retro incarnation of the old-school butcher’s son, outfitted in his heavy denim and William Lennon boots, a living expression of the working class style encapsulated in his new men’s store, Pickings & Parry.
But – unlike so many of today’s tattooed, moustache-twirling set – Chris proves the rare exception: a person less possessed of romantic notions of nostalgia than a man preserving the legacy of a family that continues to espouse the traditional values of a bygone era.
Chris: “My grandfather was a train driver who became a butcher with a shop in a village called East Boldon, a business that my father took over, that my mother ran until she passed away six years ago and that my sister and I continue to run. It makes no money but it’s been in the family for 60 years, it employs people, and so we keep it.”
His words reveal much, of both his working class roots and the strength of character run through with a seam of integrity that serves as the foundation of his personality – a characteristic that harks back to his grandfather’s time.
Perhaps it was the early death of his father that instilled such strong personal values: lost to him at the age of 10, Chris spent his teenage years absorbing the legacy that was left to him, continually flicking through his father’s collection of ‘60s motoring magazines and adopting his wardrobe of leather jackets as a way of being close.
It is easy to imagine all those years of immersion have found themselves expressed in Chris’ store, a showcase of classic work wear styles given a modern twist. And all of it set against a backdrop of old-school barber’s chairs, shears humming to the buzz of the 50-year-old Faema E61 coffee machine on the shop counter.
Chris: “The store is a working class gentleman’s club and I guess that’s what I’m trying to recreate – to change the buying culture back to that idea of working hard for the money and spending it on good things that last.”
He points to his aforementioned William Lennon boots.
Chris: “These have been made in the same way for 100 years and the great granddaughter of the founder is still the sales person for the company. It’s the same family, the same factory, the same nailed soles.”
For Chris it appears there really is no compromise and you can’t help but feel his last are words imbued with more than a little personal meaning.
Chris: “In the past people would think nothing of buying a Louis Vuitton handbag just because of what it was, not caring how it was made and where it was made. But that’s like an empty promise. If you buy something that is going to age with you and you can hand it on to your kids… well, those are the things that have a connection to who you are.”
126 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy
ph: (03) 9417 3390
e: info@pickingsandparry.com
The Event: NGV Announce The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier
He has dressed some of Australia’s most famous women in some of the fashion world’s most outrageous looks and now the designs of Jean-Paul Gaultier are coming to Melbourne in an elaborate showcase of his work on exhibit at the NGV from October: The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk.
The exhibit will feature more than 140 of his creations, including never before seen costumes worn by Madonna and Beyonce alongside pieces lent by Kylie Minogue for viewing only by the Melbourne audience.
On the announcement of the exhibition, Makers of Melbourne spoke to curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot.
Jean-Paul Gaultier exhibition curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot at the NGV media launch
The exhibition has so far shown in Montreal, Spain and New York, and will be visiting Paris after it comes to Melbourne – what brought his work here to Melbourne?
It’s really the fact that the museum is fantastic and the programming and the team at the NGV is very avant-garde. The space is amazing and it’s nice to share with a country that has the same open vision.
Tell us a little about the scale of the exhibition.
It’s been five years. I started work on the archives in 2009 and the exhibition itself has been travelling since 2011. To bring it together took two years of going through his archives which was very exciting but also terrifying – we had to choose from thousands of pieces and pick only the 140 or so that are on exhibit. But it’s been a unique opportunity: you would see his dresses in magazines and movies and then to see them in front of you… It’s like viewing a Picasso painting in a book and then experiencing it as you would in a gallery space.
'Metamorphose Gown' worn by Cate Blanchett to the Golden Globes 2005
Can you pick out any special pieces that speak to you?
There are so many dresses and pieces that Gaultier created that are so fantastic when you look at the craftsmanship – incredible couture pieces that are beaded and embroidered – but there were certain pieces I was dying to exhibit that we have held on to until we came to Melbourne: the dress Nicole Kidman collected her Oscar in for The Hours – the same with Kylie Minogue’s costumes. I knew we were coming to Australia so I kept them as a surprise.
What was Jean Paul like to work with?
In one word? Fantastic. What you see in pictures – that he is always smiling and happy and full of ideas – is really what he is. What you see is what you get: there are no surprises with him. He is a fantastic storyteller with so many incredible tales to tell of the relationships and inspiration behind each of his collaborations
Gaultier dresses on loan from Kylie Minogue
Will there ever be another Gaultier exhibition such as this?
I think it is something that can only be done once because even at first he never wanted to do an exhibition of his work. The form he works with is the human body so he prefers to see his work on real humans rather than mannequins. He believes normally exhibitions in museums are for dead artists, not living designers. Certainly I consider Jean Paul an artist, even if he considers himself an artisan.
The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk will be on show at the NGV from October 17, 2014, until February 8, 2015.
Jean Paul Gaultier 2014© 2014, Stéphane Sednaoui. All rights reserved
Andrej Pejić 2013 - Confession of a Child of the Century collection Jean Paul Gaultier Haute couture, autumn- winter 2012-13 © Alix Malka
Interview: Roger Leong
“Every generation wants to define itself against the previous generation. Men of my age have been wearing jeans for decades and the younger generation wanted to find themselves against that. So they won’t wear jeans – they will dress up. And that’s really where we are seeing the popularity of the Neo-Dandy movement.”
- Roger Leong
A conversation with Roger Leong, NGV Curator Fashion and Textiles, offers a serious fashion education. Forget paying thousands for trend forecasting: the man who has spent his professional life studying fashion in an historical context knows that, when it comes to trends, it all stems from where it’s been before.
Roger: “It’s a really difficult thing to say why certain fashion’s become popular, but it is certain that fashions return – and that the cycle of men’s fashion is much longer than women’s fashion. But of all the fashion that has come and gone, my favourite era is definitely the first half of the 19th Century.”
Roger describes it as “the Pride and Prejudice period”, when men moved from wearing opulent embroidered silks draped in less sophisticated cuts (“often in fabrics more elaborate than that which was worn by the women”) to embracing the idea that clothing should enhance the male form through pattern cutting and manipulation of cloth.
Roger: “Tailoring for men walked hand-in-hand with a growing interest in athleticism – an interest in disciplining the body and creating a well-built, muscular frame, an idea that hadn’t existed before.”
He points to George Bryan “Beau” Brummell as the movement’s key personality, a man who modelled himself on Greek statues, who focussed on the fit of his clothes from the exact proportion of a pocket to the width of a lapel.
For Roger, this is where the current landscape of men’s fashion finds its most direct connection.
Roger: “That early era of tailoring really was about the refinement of the craft and I don’t think really fundamentally that things have changed much since then.”
Roger Leong, Curator – NGV International Fashion and Textiles.
Street Style: Tatsuyoshi Japanese Aesthetic
Originally hailing from Japan, Tatsuyoshi Kawabata is a design collaborator with Melbourne based fashion label E.S.S. Laboratory. Pictured here wearing his own brand, plus leather shoes handmade by Pionero in Tokyo.
Q & A: Danvers
Far from the frenzied math-pop and tribal rhythms of bands past, Fire! Santa Rosa Fire!'s David John Williams is now operating under a different name. As Danvers, David charts deeper and murkier waters with skeletal guitar lines and hazy jazz chords - recalling a world of illicit Prohibition-era bars and crackling acetate records all coloured with a distinctly 21st century melancholy. Propelled by the sharp, minimalist percussion and lurching atmospheres, Danvers delivers each song with a croon and a holler, the impossible biological offspring of Thom Yorke and Leadbelly.
Following on from the debut single ‘Paper Skin’, a home-spun, bedroom recorded affair that proved to be a sleeper hit among the indie music media both here and abroad, the latest single ‘Oh Darling’ saw Danvers collaborate with Melbourne producer Jono Steer and the end product is rich stew of hazy blues that boils over into compressed drums and simmering effected guitars.
We caught up with David on a rainy afternoon and discussed Danvers over a coffee in Degraves cafe.
I never know if interviews need a formal starting point or if they should just flow, but could you please tell me about Danvers?
Of course! Danvers was and still is a musical project that has been in the works for a couple of years now. It was an excuse for me to experiment with some stuff that was more introspective and not really the type of thing that anyone else wanted to get too involved in - When I was younger it was an excuse to mess around and play with different ideas but it has really been in the last year and a half that I’ve wanted to take the whole thing a lot more seriously. I’ve borrowed the sound heavily off stuff that I used to listen to as a kid, lots of folk and blues.
It seems like everyone is dabbling in blues and folk music these days. Are musicians feeling like they can experiment more with the music that they enjoyed when they were younger?
Well that’s it really. Maybe it’s a cyclical thing where people of my generation are listening to that style of music again - It wasn’t necessarily a conscious choice to perform that genre in particular, but it was a conscious choice to assemble the ideas so that they were more easily identifiable as only one genre. I didn’t want to make music that was a bit of this and a bit of that. I wanted to focus on a smaller idea.
Was it an idea that you took to Fire! Santa Rosa Fire! originally or was it something that you felt more comfortable keeping to yourself?
Having played with Fire! for so long I’m a huge fan of the democratic musical process, but Danvers was something that I wanted to start by myself and then outsource other people for their skills. Everybody that I’ve got in the Danvers band now I look to for a certain element, as well as being able to play really well it’s also their tonality or their ear, I can look to them all and learn from their talents as performers.
How many people are in the band?
There are three others. Mark Gage from Foreign/National, Sam Stearne (the drummer in Fire! Santa Rosa Fire!) and a guy called Rory O’Connor who was in an Adelaide band called ‘Steering by Stars’. We’ve all got other musical stuff going on.
And how long have you been playing as Danvers?
Well I was kicking around Adelaide for a while but it’s only probably been around the past year and a half that I started taking it seriously. Now we’re trying to get out, play shows and push toward releases and that sort of stuff.
But Fire! is still together? I was a fan.
Oh yeah for sure. At the moment everyone is just off doing their own stuff.
How will you know when it’s time to get back together?
I don’t know. Probably someone will just send someone else a text message or something. Nathaniel and Caitlin are off performing as ‘Manor’ at the moment and things were headed in the direction of everyone wanting to do their own thing for a while. For example I didn’t think that everyone in Fire! Would dig the stuff I wanted to do as Danvers in the same measure as I did.
I would suggest that it’s also good to have a creative outlet, or a side project.
Absolutely. I’m always thinking of new things and it’s hard to have to say, “will this fit within the band format?” That’s the way it goes.
You said that you’ve only been performing for around a year and a half but were you writing music before that period started?
So much stuff! Writing it, recording it, listening to it and putting it out onto some obscure part of the Internet. All of that was leading up to this and in total I’d say it has been around four or five years. One day I just decided to put that little bit more effort in and be a little bit more critical with it.
It felt like the right time?
I felt it in my waters (laughs).
I love that expression! Is the Internet good for things like that - The fact that you can release music and see what the reaction is?
You could say that it cuts both ways. Now that everybody can put music out, it means that nobody can really put out music and it gets noticed. Because everybody is doing it the stream has become incredibly diluted. But really it’s not a bad thing to have this outlet for releasing whatever you want. It’s a learning curve though, knowing where to put your stuff and when to release it. It’s trial and error.
And what’s your writing process like, if you don’t mind me asking that very clichéd question?
Nah I’m always interested in hearing the answer to that when it’s asked to other musicians. I approach it from a musical element; I’ll pick up my guitar and play it until inspiration strikes. It’s funny because you can be playing for hours and hours and come up with nothing or pick it up and in two minutes you’ve got a song. In my experience it’s the quick ones that work the best. Lyrically I just write stuff down.
Do you keep journals?
Yep. I’ll write things down and look back on them and think, “that’s a cool line” or “that’s a load of crap”.
I wish I could keep a journal.
It makes you feel like you’re a big whale sifting through plankton. There’s so much deluge and lots of barnacles. I feel like I’m constantly raking for good ideas.
There’s only one type [of journal] that I like and I can only find them in Adelaide so I stock up whenever I go back. It’s not like I’m writing down, “Dear diary, today I was sad” or that type of thing. My phone also works well but it’s not the same. I’m not great at doing a narrative lyrical thing. I’m not very good at telling a story that’s worth telling.
Do your lyrics then come from personal experience?
Mainly personal experience, they can get a little schmaltzy sometimes.
Schmaltzy like cheesy?
I listen to a lot of old timey, jazz and blues and there’s so much emotion in it that sometimes I have to borrow one liners and overuse words like “baby” and “honey”. I think they’re nice words. When you listen to a guy like Howlin’ Wolf singing about his “baby” and then Justin Bieber singing about his “baby”, there’s no comparison. I think one of the reasons that I’m so drawn to jazz music is that you’ve got these artists with really unusual sounding voices.
I came to the decision a while back that I didn’t want to sing like anyone else, I just wanted to sound like me. You’ll find that when you start singing and sound very different to other performers you’ll get a lot of people saying, “that’s new, that’s different” and then you’ll get others who are saying, “I don’t like that, I can’t relate” There’s a great contingent of the music populous who just want to listen to something that doesn’t provoke them in anyway, but to take the next step you need to release the fear of making your music a reflection of yourself. Having said that, as a performer someone will inevitably say, “you sound like so and so”.
I guess the fact that people are commenting at all is a good thing, you know what they say - All publicity is good publicity.
For more information on Danvers (including details on his upcoming show at the Workers Club, 18th March) check out the Danvers Facebook page
Makers Of Melbourne - VAMFF Cultural Event
As part of this year's Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival, Makers of Melbourne in collaboration with Beggar Man Thief will be holding a panel discussion, Fashion Maketh the Man. For 90-minutes on Tuesday, March 11, some of the biggest names in men's fashion will gather at ACMI to dissect how history, culture and social change influences men's style. Listen to Sydney uber tailor John Cutler, Grenson CEO Tim Little, stylist Philip Boon, author Meg Lukens Noonan and NGV curator International Fashion & Textiles Roger Leong - among others.
Champagne on arrival. Tickets are $25, limited to 70 seats. Arrival at 6pm for a 6.30pm start. Contact Sarina for more information & tickets:
(m) 0488088290 (e) sarina@beggarmanthief.com.au
Paul in Hugo Boss
Street Style: Rohan in South Melbourne
My shoes: Salvatore Malatesta, Owner St Ali
“The old cliché, shoes make the man, is true with Paul Smith: as a brand and as a product it’s about pedigree, longevity and quirky elegance. To me a good shoe is comfortable, fun and non-conformist. It's a vehicle of self-expression."
- Salvatore
Matcho Animal Print Aquila
Interview: Nicholas Jones
It’s very much for me that inspiration comes in many forms and as the result of different prompts along the way – literature or music or architecture. Certain things will peak my interest and then I might work away from that.
- Nicholas Jones
Stepping in to the studio of artist Nicholas Jones in Melbourne’s historic Nicholas Building is a little like stepping back in time, and one gets the feeling that’s exactly the way he likes it. A ‘creative’ of stunning originality, Nicholas has made his name birthing beautiful sculptures fashioned from books: delicate, origami-like configurations; elaborate cut-outs; whimsical interpretations of page and word.
Nicholas: “I was doing a sculpture and fine arts degree at the VCA when, during the third year, I had a total artistic block. That’s when I started playing with books and that’s it really.”
That was 1997. All those years on and his studio is a treasure trove of old and second hand tomes. His latest exhibition focuses on the idea of imagined lands, the result of a fascination with maps and cartography fed by his viewing of one of the first Atlases ever published – a 16th century example of cartography he was lent access to by the State Library.
Nicholas: “There has always been an attraction to history and the evolution of information and how books are often rendered obsolete five or ten years after being published. Recently my interest has been focussed on the idea of an imagined land – Atlantis or Xanadu – those places where there is something unknown. I find that really enthralling.”
Fashion, too, has formed a part of his art by virtue of its importance to his sense of person, a trait he inherited from his always-elegant mother.
Nicholas: “Part of the work that I make is about collection and going to markets and finding certain things and that also happens with fashion, with finding something different. It ties in with that idea of presenting yourself, being a curator of style as well as a collector of objects.”
He expresses his love for the notion of a “uniform”, seen in his preference for boots and the moustache he has carried for 20 years. Not to mention his love of timeless fashions bought when the artistic wage was supplemented by a second career: a beautiful Lanvin shirt, a Balenciaga jumper, Pierre Hardy shoes.
Down and out is clearly not a style choice for this artist, clad as he is in a favoured pair of Crockett & Jones.
Nicholas: “My grandmother still wears high heels at 82.”
He smiles. Expect no less.
Nicholas Jones’ current exhibition, A Conspiracy of Cartographers, is on show at the State Library in the Dome Reading Room.
e: bibliopath@gmail.com
Shawn in RM Chelsea Boot
Event: Royal Botanic Runway
The inaugural Royal Botanic Runway transformed the majestic Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne into an international runway event on the evening of Thursday, 30 January 2014.
This charity event featured world-renowned Australian designers: Akira Isogawa, Aurelio Costarella, Collette Dinnigan and Martin Grant, who each produced stunning pieces to be worn by over sixty local and international models.
But it wasn't just on the catwalk that the best of Melbourne style was evident with the boys also turning out to support the charity fashion parade.
Director of fashion label Lui Hon, Luka Maich wearing Rick Owens sneakers
Daniel in Fendi
Trent in Crockett & Jones
Tim wearing vintage oxfords
Anderson wearing sneakers by Balenciaga
Interview: Alex Cox
“We are seeing a real trend with athletes pushing style boundaries and that has changed the mindset of the common man in how they relate to fashion.”
- Alex Cox
Alex Cox is something of a champion for the cause of men’s fashion in Melbourne. As client development manager for Events Melbourne, it was in part under his jurisdiction that 2013’s inaugural Mr event (as part of Melbourne Spring Fashion Week) was born. The idea was simple: to give men the chance to cluster around the fashion stage, so often an arena presumed to be the domain of women.
Alex: “We appreciate that a lot of people within the industry have a passion for design and for fashion, but the average city worker also wants a way to get in to that space and learn a little more and that’s what Mr was all about. It gave us the chance to educate in a more general way.”
It’s an interest Alex sees as growing, in large part as a result of the trend of NBA and NBL athletes taking to the style scene with the same panache as they once dominated the hip hop space. Think Russell Westbrook with his geek chic approach or Kevin Durant with his penchant for preppie sweaters and slim silhouettes.
Alex: “Maybe the common guy has always had an interest in fashion but has not known how to take the next step and that’s where these athletes have given them a nudge. The pursuit of style no longer feels like a feminine thing.”
Men’s style blogs, too, he believes, have helped to give men’s fashion a much stronger street presence.
Alex: “These are real people – not models on the run way – and it gives guys a lot of different touch points. It’s a space where they can take away elements of other people’s fashion and apply it to themselves.”
The scope for entertaining the male population’s growing fascination with fashion and the accompanying demand for education is, he says, what will ensure that the Spring Fashion Week Mr event will continue to remain a highly anticipated event for the men of Melbourne.
Story: Sarina Lewis