Interview: Mark McNairy

“I’m trying to make things for people who think for themselves.”

​- Mark McNairy

Mark McNairy is a contradiction in terms. He is a designer who expresses discomfort with the term, a man of incredible brand pulling power who is distrustful of conventional brand models, an artist (though he would no doubt dispute the term) operating in a commercial world.

It’s mid-morning when Makers catches up with him at the Blackman Hotel in advance of his appearance at Carbon Festival, Mark having flown in from New York via Hong Kong the night before.

He is quick to profess his unease around interviews, and says Saturday’s public speaking engagement will be among his first (a challenge to his “fear” of the format): but while clearly uncomfortable at being in the spotlight, his reticence shields a clear and authentic creative purpose.

Mark: “I’m basically making things for myself. To me, it’s not a business and I’m lucky that I can make a living by my hobby.”

It’s more than good PR speak. He tells the tale of his first collaboration, a shoe design for Keds, the Dunlop Volley of American footwear culture. There’s a genuine smile as he recalls the project.

Mark: “For me to have my name on a sneaker that I had when I was a kid, that was the ultimate. And that’s how it started.”

The “it” Mark refers to is his prolific schedule of collaborations that operate alongside footwear and clothing releases under his Mark McNairy New Amsterdam label. Along with the current marriage with Woolrich, Adidas and Pharrell Williams’ Billionaire Boys Club have been joint projects with retailer Club Monaco, shoe brand Bass and American optical company Garrett Leight among others.

Mark: “I have too many ideas for my own collections. When I had my company McNairy Brothers before working with J.Press I was known as Mr Sample by my business partners because I made way too many things. I hate working with plans; my brain doesn’t work that way. Tell me to design 12 things and it’s the 13th thing that could be great. I make what I want and they can edit.”

Invariably, what Mark wants is what the world will be clamouring to wear. His design style is typified by a reworking of the classics. Take the latest collection, where wool suits were made street-ready through a relaxation of the fit and a roll of the trouser cuff, while grey pinstriped pants were given a casual edge courtesy of subtle cargo pockets.

It’s for this reason that he professes to a lingering discomfort with the term “design” being applied to what he does. He insists he is a “maker”. Certainly the word implies a more organic process, an impression Mark strengthens by admitting he can rarely switch off from the ideas that bombard his brain. (He carries a pen and paper always.)

The notion carries through when time comes to talk branding, the topic of the Carbon forum Mark is joining in on. Interesting, then, that he appears to barely believe in the term.

A lot of what should be written next was taken off the record by Mark, who is clearly torn by his desire to remain true to his creative urges while navigating the necessities of commerce. The question is thus: how to steer clear of the pitfalls of becoming a corporate fashion juggernaut (a fate that has befallen many a once-cool fashion house) as the demand for his designs increase?

Mark doesn’t answer the question except to highlight his disdain for the brands that have walked that path before him. One gets the strong feeling it’s a journey he won’t be taking.

Mark: “I know you’re supposed to have an end goal but I still don’t. I just make things. I make things for people who can think for themselves. I learned through trial and error never to put all my eggs in one basket, which is why I’ve got a good thing going now with the different collaborations. I guess I just care too much (to sell-out) and, in the end, that’s a good thing.”

Interview: George Glasgow Cleverley Jr

“We are the shoemakers’ shoemaker.”

                                        -       George Glasgow Cleverley Jr

It may be a cliché, but in this case it is a hard one to avoid: certainly whatever the heir apparent to G.J Cleverley, George Glasgow Cleverley Jr, does not know about bespoke shoemaking is – inarguably – hardly worth knowing.

He arrives in Melbourne hot off the back of Los Angeles’ Oscars week, having fitted a host of big name entertainers for the event, as is attested by his attendance at the legendary Vanity Fair Oscars party in the week before our chat. Yet George Jr is far from starry eyed – being part of a family company that once shod Winston Churchill, working with the likes of LA luminaries must be par for the course.

As the company’s chief executive and creative director, the near 30-year-old (“I’m 30 next month”) carries both the legacy and the knowledge of more than a half-century of English craftsmanship in his head. Makers of Melbourne chat to him during a 48-hour fly-in visit to fit his bespoke Melbourne clients out of Fitzroy’s Double Monk, the representative of a family business in an industry that has few left to speak of.

George: “We are one of the last family run shoe businesses out there: Church’s is now owned by Prada, Berluti is run by the LVMH group. It’s just my father and I. Our shoes are made the same way as they were 100 years ago. We do the process by hand, drawing around the feet of our customer and taking 15 or 20 measurements. The shoes take six months to reach the fitting stage and it’s really like a drug – once they’ve ordered a pair they always come back for more.”

Needless to say the hefty price tag (bespoke shoes run upward of AUS$5000) means the company’s relationship with the rich and famous is much in evidence.

Alexander McQueen wore a pair of Cleverley boots when he was knighted by the Queen of England and the more loyal clients each have their own style named for them: among them the Chow (a streamlined monk named for American restaurateur Michael Chow), and the Churchill (no explanation needed).

George flips David Beckham’s wooden block in his hands as we talk – the mould around which the soccer star’s shoes are formed.

George: “I’ve been in this business by default forever. My Dad is 63 and he’s been in shoes since he was 15. I was 17 or 18 when I got my first pair. They were Chelsea boots in black calf. I still have them, which is not unusual for a Cleverley shoe – in New York we had a guy who came in wearing a pair that was made in 1968.”

He is justifiably proud of the heritage, citing theirs as the shoe brand of choice for designers the world over, from Ralph Lauren to the CEO of Bulgari.

George: “My Dad always used to say to me that you should always spend the most amount of money on your shoes and on your bed, because if you’re not in one, you’re in the other.”

GJ Cleverley

Interview: Jess Wooten

The fragmentation of production in modern assembly lines has evolved since the Industrial Revolution. To think of the T-Model Ford being produced with the locality of the sources for most of its working components, compared to a Holden Commodore, made up of parts produced thousands of different hands and eyes from all over the world, signals a deeper type of splintering.

I meet Jess Cameron Wootten at the start of a working weekday, after he has just opened the door to Wootten Cordwainers. My eyes trace around the gallery-esque white walls of the retail space adjacent to his workshop. It's usually open on the weekends only, with all the production happening in the workshop within the days closed. Today is an exception, for a little while.

It's not long before we, as two shoemakers in our own rights, embark on discussing the existence of his Australian shoemaking business that produces its shoes totally in house. Jess trained as an industrial designer prior to pursuing his dream of Wootten, developing the upholstery materials and working within a portion of the interior of their cars. The desire to be more connected to a product, to be more invested in the sum of its components, compelled him to birth Wootten. He says he grew tired of being lost in the sea of anonymity and at times invisibility within the company.

I find that it's difficult not to be political when it comes to things that defy the common-sense of the modern capitalist market. Why should one avoid being political too,  when the logic of keeping costs low and output high thwarts many visions from succeeding as ideas versus economics?

"I guess you could call it adaptation rather than submission, what we do here" Jess answers mesays. Jess' own father worked a long time ago for the Bulgarian master shoemaker, George Koleff and today Jess continues the tradition of craft through Wootten. Here in Prahran he has assembled a miniature production line, employing three shoemakers, as well as overseeing and contributing to the major stages of construction of the footwear. As much as possible while retaining the level of quality required for his shoes, he sources local materials, but he notes at the rarity of them and also of the equipment required to produce shoes in a factory setting. "There is a true shortage of the machinery itself required to produce shoes here in Melbourne- most of it has left in containers landing to equip overseas factories with things that we used to do here."

I queried him on how he feels about taking shortcuts in the shoemaking process to minimise production time. "There are things that you simply can't fake and even if you do it's going to show up later down the track" He says to me, with a committed look. It runs deeper to attention to detail. The black burnishing of a toe on a pair of dark brown brogues may also need some dark brown and burgundy wax in the burnishing to give it its subtle aesthetic beauty. There are many reasons why handmade shoes will always have more appeal.

Jess is aware that in order to survive in the present consumer environment, where shoes largely prevail as disposable items, his main concern within a role that is usually acquainted with producing a low volume of finished products, is to produce an adequate quantity of shoes to make the business expandable.  His father's approach as the bespoke shoemaker, hand stitching every thread involved and taking every slow way possible, has been shown to Jess to be more worrisome and exhausting in today's environment. "It doesn't mean that those ways are entirely excluded from my practice, as in hand welting, but they aren't the requested norm. To produce shoes in that way at stomachable prices for the Australian public, is to heavily deflate the cost of what the shoes are actually worth.  Granted that, in finding the balance there are certain compromises that I'm not willing to make."

We squint and scratch our heads, labouring over thoughts of what is possible in the future of shoemaking in Melbourne.  Consumer culture is changing at a increasing pace. Compile the fed-up-with-plastic consumer, the arrival of more and more high calibre English shoes in Melbourne within the retail setting, a renewed interest from younger generations in traditional shoemaking- and you find a signal that change is abounding.

Until then there is work to do and this is exactly what Jess will do when I leave. Tooth and nail.

Wootten Cordwainer and Leather Craftsmen

www.wootten.com.au

20 Gratton Street, Prahran

Ph: 9532 2611

- Story Royce Alido

Interview: Roy Christou

“I think it all starts with design. Whether it be a well-cut pant or an Italian restaurant with the paper tablebloths, clips and candles, it’s all birthed from that same space. People like to look at nice things and I think it’s becoming more and more instilled in us to respond to thoughtfully designed objects and spaces.” - Roy Christou

Anyone who was around to experience the Roy label denim frenzy of the Noughties will understand there is no over statement in holding up designer Roy Christou as one of the messiah’s of Melbourne men’s fashion. The Anglo-Greek who emigrated from England – and was influenced by his intrinsically stylish European parents in how to dress – has been an integral player in the fashion scene since his 1987 launch in to the design sphere.

Talking from his new store in Chapel Street for his current label, Honor Among Thieves, Roy is a natural born storyteller. He recalls it all. From the sharpie look of the ‘70s to the surf look of the ‘80s. He says while men’s fashion once stuttered to a standstill it has experienced a resurgence in the past 15 years – and the men of Melbourne are at the forefront.

Roy: “Men have become more outward in the way they peacock themselves. I saw one yesterday with this little Andy cap and tight shirt with braces holding up slim, really tight pants and a little bit of hipster growth on his face. Particularly in Melbourne, more people are making more of an event of getting dressed. It was like in the ‘70s, gangs made an effort. The sharpies with their sharpie cardigans, then you had the surf culture – both were spending money on their looks to look a particular way. Then it kind of all petered off and just seems to have come back in the past 15 years. There are still uniforms going on – the whole hipster thing is a tribe, as long as they have enough triangles on their t-shirts and rolls in the pant legs”

He puts much of this awareness of style tribes down to the launch of the Melbourne Fashion Festival. Its development, he says, brought fashion out of the rarefied stratosphere of haute design and translated it for the masses.

Roy: “(Before fashion week) a lot of people just went with what they were told, but this way they could see what was happening, that there was a story behind the clothes as far as the label was concerned. People became fans of label, and fans of fashion and design.”

As for the question of whether it’s the city that makes the fashion, or the fashion that makes the city, Roy is adamant that it all comes down to design. “Certain things happen in Melbourne. Style is part of our everyday. Where it used to be elite, it’s now gone mainstream but in the best possible way.”

Honor Among Thieves

honoramongthieves.com.au

CITY STORE:

20 Russell Place, Melbourne 3000

Ph: 03 9650 7349

CHAPEL STREET STORE

587 Chapel St, South Yarra, Vic 3141

e. shop@honoramongthieves.com.au

Interview: Annie Abbott

“When I’m in Italy and am over there taking snaps of all the shoes then posting them online, people back home are just fascinated by that. I think we in Melbourne are just so curious with an appreciation of the craftsmanship that goes in to making shoes – more than clothes. As an object of wear there is so much presence in that three dimensional form.” - Annie Abbott

We are early to a mid-morning appointment in High Street, Armadale, the location of shoemaker Annie Abbott’s latest retail space. But she is too busy to stop: the clients that have become devoted to her bright take on classic brogue, loafer and Chelsea shapes are keeping her attention well occupied. Eventually she breaks, taking the time to talk before a scheduled trip to Italy the next morning.

Annie: “What is Melbourne fashion? It’s about an embrace of new design and new designers. We are celebrated more here than in other cities. People like a point of difference and they like to get in to the fibre of where something’s coming from.” Annie retells her story: her years buying at Net-A-Porter when the online behemoth was but a start-up. Her time spent in production for an Australian footwear company. Her desire to strike out on her own, building the types of shoes she knew Melbourne would go made for under her Habbot brand. Shoes that are finely detailed, elegant but wearable.

It’s this aesthetic she sees being played out by Melbourne men as they embrace their individuality and up the style stakes.

Annie: “There’re two things going on. First is an Italian approach – that relaxed but tailored approach that has purpose and intention. Nice shirts and relaxed pants finished with a good dress shoe. The other is a kind of preppy-ness in an awesome framed glasses, crazy Victor & Rolf kind of way; a bit more quirky, finished with a brogue or Chelsea boot.”

The common theme, as Annie sees it, is in the personalisation. Taking a story and making it ones own with personality that is playfully and thoughtfully inserted. The result of a citywide style confidence that the men of Melbourne possess in spades.

Habbot

www.habbotstudios.com

1011 High Street, Armadale; Royal Arcade Bourke Street Mall.

ph: 03 9822 8484

e: shop@habbotstudios.com

Interview: Tom Riley

“Tailoring is a European tradition. In Italy men have that history of wearing tailored clothing and fitting it well. We are trying to cultivate that here – to change the way men dress in Australia so it’s not so contrived and highly orchestrated. It is a gentler way of wearing tailoring. Not so robotic.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                       - Tom Riley

Wine making is not the normal career path taken by most professional tailors. But then Tom Riley is perhaps not someone often referred to as a traditionalist. He is young, for a start. At 35 he is not possessed of the grey hair or black-rimmed specs often attributed to the cliché.

As he describes it, the switch from the vineyards of Penfolds to the secluded South Melbourne outpost of P Johnson Tailors is a natural transition.

Tom: “In wine you kind of balance and compose something and in tailoring you balance and compose something, so it is really just a general interest in finery and aesthetics. There are a lot of layers to both professions. They are both complex and aesthetically oriented.  They both inspire travel – which I love – and they are both very European centric in sentiment and origin.”

The last is a salient point, particularly given Tom’s view on Australian men’s fashion. He laments a tradition of suiting here that he sees as being in contrast to our lifestyle and climate and – along with his friend and mentor Patrick Johnson – hopes to inspire the men of Melbourne to embrace a little Southern Italian style.

Tom: “Southern Italy has a softer, sportier, even a bit sexier approach with light weight colours and very light weight construction. It’s a prime example showing suits don’t require being utterly formal. That you can wear some of these things with trainers and driving shoes, all the way through to a finer brogue.”

Ultimately Tom is hoping to see the men of Melbourne apply a little less effort. It is a cultural shift – a thought process that needs to evolve so a softly structured suit becomes as familiar as the more relaxed pant and shirt combo. Tom has faith the wheel will turn.

Tom: “If a guy dresses naturally they will look better and wear it better. It’s about being sensual with the cloth and the cut without being uptight or overly orchestrated. There are a lot of good dressers out there, but I think the standard could lift a little bit.”

- Sarina Lewis

Interview: Theo Hassett

“I stopped by Oliver Moore’s in New York late last year and they had a dusty shelf down the back with shoes that may have been gifted back to the makers once the client died, or perhaps when they had no use for them. They’d all been well worn and the making was just incredible…I spent hours in there photographing the details. I walked down Madison Ave past Berluti…Lobb…to me, nothing came close.”  - Theo Hassett

There is a growing discernment of quality and craftsmanship in Melbourne. It is a discernment that extends its tendrils into many things, digestible or inanimate. Theo Hassett is a bespoke shoemaker. It is his job, in attempting to craft the highest quality shoes possible, to be as discerning as he can be. There are no shortcuts in the process and no compromises that will not go unnoticed in a pair of bespoke shoes. For their owners, they are the things they are stepping into and out of, wearing them for hours, days, weeks, years and potentially decades. Van Gogh painted them worn and battered after years of wear with due appreciation. They are something to digest.

I walk the set of stairs up to the first level of the Captains of Industry building to visit Theo. It’s an unassuming entrance. The café is operating in the bustle of the day. His workshop is through a crevice of a door flanked by a white ladder displaying belts, wallets and finished shoes. For over three years of work in this place, Theo has proven that if you can make good work out of a demand that is only increasing, there is an opportunity to exist and thrive.

Theo: “The fact that there are two schools in Melbourne teaching shoemaking is the reason I am a shoemaker. They come from Melbourne’s past as a major manufacturing town and if it weren’t for our past, they wouldn’t exist.” I remember a conversation I’d had with Theo prior where he mentioned a tannery in Fitzroy that once existed. It produced thick, high quality leather for a certain type of boots. The demolition must have happened a long time ago. Shoemaking doesn’t happen as often as it used to in Melbourne. Bespoke, has itself had to adapt, influenced by its rarity as a service today. Theo tells me that “only about 10% of customers have a strong idea of what they want” leaving it up to him to guide them into something appropriate and more often than not, sharing equally in the design process.

As the winter approaches, Theo can anticipate to be fitting Melbourne men for more Balmoral boots than Oxfords, a popular choice in the colder months. A side of English behaviour and taste to suit our grey weather, that is to be enjoyed if you know how to. At present he is working on an “Adelaide” Brogue in mahogany coloured Kangaroo leather with Ostrich leg facings. It’s a shoe I’d seen him recently make for himself and one that someone became interested in because of his recent efforts. There’s a solid week worth of work in it if you want to execute it without a flaw. Being able is the only precondition. That takes time.

Roberts & Hassett

www.roberts-hassett.com

Level 1 / 2 Somerset Place, Melbourne

ph: 03 9670 4405

e: info@roberts-hassett.com.au

- by Royce  Alido