Interview: Talia Daroesman, Lovers Court

“Hoop dreams echoing off hot bitumen” is how designer Talia Daroesman sums up the aesthetic of her Lovers Court debut leisurewear collection.

Talia: “It [Lovers Court] came about just over a year ago. Since I was little I’d always wanted to have a clothing brand, that’s been my goal forever. It took me a while to know what I wanted it to be, how I wanted it to be, and it was almost a year and a half ago that I finally got the idea and name together. I always just wanted to have it as something I could be creative with, have fun with, and, at the end of the day enjoy it.”

Lovers Court has taken a contemporary attitude toward establishing itself as a brand, with the creation of non-seasonal collections and a strong emphasis on unisex prints and design. As Daroesman explained to Makers of Melbourne when we sat down over drinks “I don’t want to have the pressure of having to put together a winter range and then a summer range. I want to have fun with it and more flexibility.”

Flexibility describes this new label well. Lovers Court draws its inspiration from an undeniably urban influence, though with a modern approach that encompasses inspiration from equal parts hip-hop and traditional American street wear as much as it does the dizzying hyper-density of Asian megapolises.

After graduating from RMIT in textile design in 2008 there was time spent abroad, harvesting inspiration in Hong Kong, working part-time and developing a business plan, that inadvertently “killed” her creativity. “I think that’s why it took me so long to get started but now I’m glad that I didn’t do anything earlier.”

Talia: “There were a few instances of starting something but not really getting into it, starting something else but not feeling it, and knowing that it wasn’t the right time. Knowing that I needed more time to figure out what I wanted to do to get some inspiration back.”

For Daroseman, the decision to focus her energy on street wear was a no-brainer. It’s a culture that she connects with, and with her baby bangs and large hoop earrings, it’s immediately obvious that she lives and breathes the lifestyle. 

For now Lovers Court consists of a unisex range of cotton and silk scarves, bucket hats, 5-panel caps and printed t-shirts. Featured throughout the collection are three recurring digital and screen print designs - a monochrome colour palette struck through with flashes of pink. The prints take cues from typography saturated street wear combined with the grid and pixel aesthetic of early computer-generated graphics. As Talia explains, these versatile pieces and patterns are designed to be built up to clash and vibrate against each other or alternatively to be worn as standalone statement pieces.

Beyond the debut collection, Daroesman hopes to expand into cut & sew garments in early 2015, starting with a range of women’s down-tempo, sport luxe sweats, with plans to then expand into menswear, staying true to the brand’s unisex vision.

Talia expresses a strong desire to keep her production local, as long as the label can continue to afford the growing cost of manufacturing in Melbourne (Her printed cut & sew pieces are to be produced in Abbotsford, while the debut collection t-shirts have been screen printed in Fitzroy).

Until she can afford to work on the label full-time she continues to design her collection around her job in a busy Melbourne café, her free time devoted to building a solid online presence. There’s brief mention of a potential Pozible campaign, after watching several other designers take the crowd-funding route and finding success. “I think it’s awesome. People get something in return so it’s not like they’re giving away to charity. Melbournians like to support their local fashion scene.”

Photos – Heather Lighton

Interview: Kloke Designers, Amy and Adam Coombes

There’s a warmth to Amy and Adam Coombes that resonates through their designs. An initial phone conversation with Adam and a visit to meet Amy at the Kloke boutique culminates in a sunny Saturday morning meeting where the Makers team is welcomed into the couple’s Fitzro studio.

Launching their Kloke label in 2011, both Amy and Adam have a deep connection to the Melbourne fashion scene. Between the pair, the Coombes’ have worked with some of this city’s most lauded designers. An important pedigree when it came to establishing their own range of men’s and women’s clothing.

Kloke: “The initial intent of the brand was to produce considered products that are loved season after season. Over the years we have been able to combine our differing ideas and bring together what is now Kloke. The brand continues to evolve and being able to work together to create something that is a part of who we both are is a continuous motivation.”

We’re sitting around a wooden worktable in the centre of the Kloke studio. It’s a small space, shared with a local artist, whose stunning macramé wall hangings fight for attention next to bulging racks of Japanese fabric, sewing patterns and current season samples. With son Remi sitting happily nearby, soft music playing and dappled sunlight falling through a nearby window, the open plan room is comfortable with an air of creative energy.

Sipping takeaway coffee from a nearby deli, the Coombes' begin explaining the ethos behind their growing brand. There’s talk of fluidity, not only in shape and fit, but also a growing sense of ease in their design aesthetic. Over the past few seasons they have taken the steps to develop their range with experimentation in both pattern, fabrications and knitwear, which has been added to both winter and summer collections.  

Kloke: “Our intention is to create strong lines and classic silhouettes that have an effortless feel but considered approach. The longevity of a piece starts from the initial idea, the fabric choice and the shape of the garment, we ask ourselves how each piece will wear and make sure it fits with Kloke.

We have been really driven to create collections that work back with each season, in some ways it is like building on a wardrobe. The collections evolve but previous pieces still remain relevant and each collection does still see us standing true [to] who we are and what we believe and want the business to be.”

With business sustainability at the forefront of their minds, the design duo has been careful to build the brand at their own pace. Although they launched three years ago and have been stocked in numerous high-end stores around Melbourne, it wasn’t until late last year that the couple opened their own retail space on Fitzroy’s bustling Brunswick street. Although they casually mention plans to expand at some point in the future, at this stage the busy pair is more than comfortable managing one boutique and a successful online store.

It’s a business plan that works well around their frequent trips to Japan, where they source fabric and sell their designs. The Japanese market has been very receptive to the Kloke brand, not surprising when you consider the clean lines and effortless sophistication Amy and Adam produce season after season.

Kloke: “The conceptual influence comes from our lives and the things we do each day, from all the things around us. This does change seasonally and also depends on life, where we’ve been, what we’ve been listening to, watching looking at and the things we find. From a garment  perspective, we’re generally into designers who’ve altered the way we look at cut  or have changed our perception of design. From the method of how Cristobel Balenciaga cut a sleeve to the way Rei Kawakubo alters the design process. We hope that by looking wide the outcome is something new.”

Although there are rumblings of further international interest, the couple is quick to point out the limitations of Aussie labels selling into larger overseas markets. The difference in season may cause issue, as well as a lack of understanding as to how a smaller brand may fit into a larger fashion spectrum.

With so much to look forward to, Makers can’t help but ask for a sneak peak into the forthcoming summer collection. There’s excitement and a mention of “so much goodness” as we are taken through the new season garments.

Kloke: “We have expanded on our knitwear collection and have some great colours in the range. We have also expanded the dress offering in our women’s range using a Japanese viscose that has a beautiful drape.

The snake in the grass print has been used across men’s and women’s, in denim and cotton shirting. A firm fabric favorite and standout in the collection is the double mesh nylon used in the women’s range. We have also introduced some new trouser shapes for men.”

The future looks bright and Makers can’t help but think that this brand has been built to go the distance. Kloke is a Melbourne label that we predict will be going strong for many years to come.

Kloke: “ Sustaining the business long term is really important to us, and this comes from many aspects, not just the design of the garment. We plan on Kloke being around for a long time and to help ensure this we have been developing and growing at our own pace."

The Event: Jenny Bannister Retrospective

Jenny Bannister is standing surrounded by racks of clothing in the front room of her St Kilda home. But what at first looks like a slightly over crowded sample room is anything but: hair is its customised tease, Jenny one by one picks out a host of outfits once worn by a who’s-who of ’80s and ‘90s pop stars.

There is the two-piece worn by Tina Turner with its fitted black jacket and matching kick-pleat skirt; the black collarless jacket Kylie Minogue donned for her I Should Be So Lucky single cover; the immediately recognisable velvet jacket worn by Australia’s late ‘80s answer to Bananarama, the Chantoozies.

And every piece comes with it’s own story.

Jenny Bannister Plastic Tutus, Big Top Sportsgirl Parade 1979. Photograph by Rennie Ellis

Jenny: “Helena (Christensen) used to stay at the Como with Michael Hutchence and used to love going up and down Chapel Street; I told her where to go when it came to all the vintage shops. Kylie Minogue turned up at my house in Port Melbourne to buy after finding my clothes through doing magazine shoots. Deborah Thomas was one of my customers. Kate Fitzpatrick when she was going out with Imran Khan came and bought a whole leather outfit. I think she did a vodka ad in it…”

But the walk down memory lane is more than just an indulgence for the designer who headed her own label from its launch in the mid-1970s to its wind up in 1996 – it is the prelude to this Tuesday night’s fashion retrospective, an event designed to showcase the pieces created by the designer over four decades.

'Untamed Creatures Run Amok' - Talisa Soto wears Jenny Bannister, Vogue Australia April 1984

Some 60 outfits will be paraded on the night in a charity event birthed by Jenny’s friend-in-fashion, the stylist Philip Boon.

For Philip, the event is an opportunity to bring to light a cannon of work significant enough to have found placement in museums both in Australia and overseas: as well as having pieces bought by Christies and The Victoria & Albert museums in London, Jenny lays claim to the title of most collected Australian fashion designer by our own National Gallery of Victoria.

For ticket buyers, it’s a chance to experience Jenny’s eclectic-punk fashion sensibility in all its eccentric glory. And it is eccentric, from the clear plastic punk rock ball gown that wouldn’t appear out of place in a Vivienne Westwood runway show, to the reef bikini pieced together with gold scallop shells worn by the 1978 Miss Universe finalist that wouldn’t seem out of place on a Bond girl.

Jenny: “The design, it comes straight from my imagination and in to my hands. For me it’s about creating something amazing that doesn’t look like anything else and that’s why I live on this planet.”

(L-R) Stylist Philip Boon & Jenny Bannister

But being an “art clothier” (“someone coined the term for me in 1980 when I showed at the gallery of NSW”) doesn’t always gel with the economic realities of commercial design. Though energised by fellow designers and customers who gave Chapel Street its title as Melbourne’s top retail shopping strip throughout the 1980s and in to the early ‘90s, changes to the industry meant Jenny – since shutting down her business – is more than happy to play her hand at more artistic design collaborations.

Jenny: “It was really good earlier but towards the end… The global fashion landscape has changed. It’s much more slick. Right up until the end I had customers who understood the cost of making a dress that was unique and flattering and different, but those sorts of customers are becoming fewer. Now I design for myself. The commercial Jenny Bannister is gone. I can go back to my early roots and be an artistic fashion designer.”

But first there is the retrospective. It will be, both Jenny and Philip agree, a huge night. Along with the clothing strutted to music will be an auction of one of Jenny’s one-off pieces, an art auction by venue hosts, Deutscher and Hackett, and a concert by – who else? – The Chantoozies.

Oh, and for the grand finale? Philip has made sure the runway is large enough that Jenny has space to shake her groove thing following the finale.

Philip Boon Presents… Jenny Bannister: A Retrospective Fashion Show held in conjunction with Prahran Mission and Deutscher & Hackett gallery. Held Tuesday, May 20, at 7pm. Tickets: $95. 

Tickets available through Try Booking

The Event: VAMFF Offsite Runway, Nixi Killick

A stand out of the 2013 Melbourne Fashion Festival graduate’s parade, self proclaimed “future imaginer” Nixi Killick (with a little help from a successful Pozzible campaign) kicked off the 2014 Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival with an offsite runway show at warehouse-cum-art gallery, Toot Fanute.

Half fashion parade, half art installation, a handful of models worked their way around the crowded event space, posing on foil covered boxes as a keen, fashion-forward audience scrambled to look on. 

The full house was entertained pre-show with a short set by singer Nai Palm from Grammy nominated band Hiatus Kaiyote. Show over, attendees were given the opportunity to purchase some of the more wearable parts of the Nixi Killick "bio psychedelic streetwear" collection -  a selection of t-shirts, hats and drawings available to purchase from a makeshift merch stand.

The young Footcray-based designer's business savvy in using her collection launch to sell a range of accessories was admirable. Most of the unisex streetwear shown during the energetic parade was more couture than prêt-a-porter, making it challenging for the average Melbournian to wear. 

Designer Nixi Killick (second from right) & her event team