Talks

The Quick Unpick The Social Studio presents its second series of design talks throughout May and June 2010 with local designers discussing their work and backgrounds. $10/8 entry fee includes drinks and supports the community work of the Social Studio.

The talks take place 6.30 – 7.30pm at The Social Studio,
128 Smith Street Collingwood.

Talks

designer Amy McLellan will be discussing her work and label ammo this Wednesday 14th October, 6.30 - 7.30pm at The Social Studio.  The label name is her nickname. She has been designing and operating this label for seven years. With her extraordinary people skills she has built a strong and loyal client base.  ammo is a bright, vivacious woman with a quirky sense of humour. This nature transcends into many of her clothing designs with garments often being interactive and playful. With a warm personality and talkative nature, Amy draws people to her. “My grandmother, Thelma was the fashion conscious one when I was growing up. She wore gucci pants and fabulous Coureges sunnies. If she fell in love with a pair of shoes, she would buy five pairs in different colours, same as with hosiery. I remember when she passed away her garage was full of stockings in unopened packets and piles of designer clothing. She loved fashion! She exposed me to lots of gorgeous fashiony things.”  Amy loves design and exploring elements of this carft - lines, space, texture and light. She graduated from Swinburne University in 1996 with a degree in Graphic Design. After uni Amy took off with a friend and a camera to travel abroad. Like many travellers she arived home broke, unemployed but inspired.

designer Kristy Barber will be discussing her work this Wednesday 7th October, 6.30 - 7.30pm at The Social Studio. Kuwaii is known for its beautiful, luxurious fabrics combined with intricate pattern-making techniques and tailoring precision referencing moments of the past to create garments that are particularly modern. Kristy Barber studied fashion at Melbourne’s Box Hill TAFE, graduating in 2006. After stints interning with Lover and Arnsdorf, the Melbourne based Kuwaii began in March 2007 when Kristy was awarded Student Designer of the Year at the L’oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival. Since then, Kuwaii has gone from strength to strength, with highlights including a debut at Independent Runway at the L’oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival 2009, appearing at “Debut” at this year’s Fashion Exposed, as well as being awarded as a finalist in the 2009 Fashion Palette Excellence awards at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week.

designer Emily Wright will be discussing her work and label Nancybird this Wednesday 21st October, 6.30 - 7.30pm at The Social Studio.
Nancybird is a Melbourne based accessories label, focussing on quality materials and playful, thoughtful design. Much of the range has been hand printed by local Melbourne makers or by the designer, Emily Wright. All leathers are custom made in gorgeous seasonal colours. The collection has a distinctively Australian feel, using raw, earthy materials with influences from Africa, Japan and Central Europe. You can find nancybird at independent retailers throughout Australia and New Zealand.

designer Kylie Zerbst will be discussing her work and label Obüs this Wednesday 28th October, 6.30 - 7.30pm at The Social Studio.
Obus is made up of a small team of very dedicated people who work extremely hard to bring you clothing that is beautiful as well as practical. Obus is designed with modern travelling women in mind. Travellers rely on their clothing, so creating quality garments with longevity is of utmost importance to us. We hope that the garments you buy from Obus will be perpetual favourites in your wardrobe for many years. For this reason, we source beautiful, high quality fabrics from around the globe and create the most special garments possible. Obus is entirely Melbourne based and all of our garments are manufactured here. When you buy Obus clothing you can be happy to know that the money you spend stays here and supports local craftspeople and our local economy. It also means we can ensure the highest quality for you. Obus is environmentally conscious, ethically manufactured and internationally respected.

designers Monika Tywanek and Ingrid Verner will be discussing their work and label TV this Wednesday 4th November, 6.30 - 7.30pm
at The Social Studio.
”rejecting balance in favour of focus, and broad appeal for cult-like enthusiasm, melbourne label TV has wit and imagination to spare. their aesthetic is bold, uncomprimising and playful, betraying a shared love of visual art cultural reinterpretation. producing a series of intelligent and quirky collections, designers monika tywanek and ingrid verner have built one of the most unique and exciting labels in australia, rewarding their core of fans with seven seasons of essential pieces and standout shows.”

Designer Miriam Borcherdt from Munk is presenting her work for the Quick Unpick series at The Social Studio this Wednesday 11th November, 6.30 - 7.30pm

Born in Germany and raised in the US, Borcherdt trained at the Rhode Island School of Design and has worked with both John Galliano and Romeo Gigli. For 10 years her label Munk has provided innovative clothing with a focus on customised fabrics and experimental pattern making. Borcherdt has also established a project with the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre producing a range of felt toys and homewares in collaboration with mothers who face employment difficulties.

Designer Matthew Thompson from mattt is presenting his work for the Quick Unpick this Wednesday 18th November, 6.30 - 7.30pm
at The Social Studio
Designed and handmade in Melbourne, mattt bags are well-known around Melbourne’s weekend markets and now have their own home in the matttt studio space on Gertrude Street. Since 2000, mattt has produced a range of bags made from high quality materials (normally found in outdoor and hiking equipment) and are unique in that customers can choose both materials and fabrics. The fabric range includes imported, hand-printed and digitally printed textiles, often produced through collaboration with fellow designers and illustrators.

VAN DER GLAS

Designer Polly van der Glas of
Van Der Glas is presenting her work
Wednesday 18th November,
6.30 - 7.30pm
at The Social Studio
With a BA in fashion (RMIT), a graduate certificate in cultural studies (Melbourne Uni) and an advanced diploma in jewellery (NMIT), Polly van der Glas' jewellery and small scale sculpture focuses on the landscape of the body and its meanings. Since 2005 her work has centred on materials once attached to bodies: human hair, teeth, and fingernails. She uses these materials to examine how beauty is transformed - once part of an elaborate beauty ritual (hair and teeth were brushed and bleached, fingernails painted), they become 'ugly' when discarded. Polly has a studio in Melbourne where she handcrafts her silver and mixed media pieces.

a name is a label
Are presenting their work
Wednesday 12th May,
6.30 – 7.30pm.
at The Social Studio
Both Nicole Fausten and Lina Didzys inherited their parents’ post World War II European frugality, only using recycled materials for their challenging, wearable and empowering pieces. Inspired by surrealism, the energy and attitude of the 80’s street culture and the punk ethos, a name is a label was born overseas while the two friends were travelling. All a name is a label products work to breathe new life into recycled objects while demonstrating new possibilities to the wearer. An established Melbourne label, a name is a label has featured from 2006 to 2008 in the L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival’s Cultural Program, the Melbourne International Design Festival 2009, and exhibited at the Environmentally Sustainable Design Festival 2009.

anameisalabel.com
photo: Rachel Taylor

Adele Varcoe
is presenting her work Wednesday 26th May, 6.30 – 7.30pm.
at The Social Studio

Adele Varcoe is an interdisciplinary designer who can be found making things and modifying skins in her travelling tent. Her most recent work, iFold is a propositional design for a new fashion that invites people to temporarily modify their skin. Adele holds a degree in fashion and has recently completed a Masters of Design exploring the relationship between materials and the body. She has also worked with Bernard Willhelm in Paris and as a special effects artist on a selection of B-grade films. Alongside her research practice, Adele currently teaches within the School of Architecture and Design at RMIT University.

MüCKE Ellie Mucke will be presenting her work Thursday 10 June,
6.30 – 7.30pm at The Social Studio With an art teacher and a fine wood-turner for parents Ellie Mucke grew up nourished by art and craft. Ellie established the fashion label MüCKE to bring together her environmental and social concerns with a love for design. The MüCKE collection of ladies clothing and accessories is created from existing and used garments and fabrics, manufactured either in-house or ethically outsourced to a local maker. Ellie undertook a textiles Mentorship with Craft Victoria in 2006, won the Emerging Designers’ Award at Flinders Quarter in 2006, had her work in the Eco Innovators Showcase in 2009 and has collaborated on various projects with other designers and artists. mucke.com.au

Leeyong Soo will be presenting her work Thursday 24th June
6.30 – 7.30pm at The Social Studio Former International Fashion Editor at Vogue Japan, Leeyong Soo was one of the first fashion writers in Japan to introduce the Fair Trade movement with the Vogue /People Tree collaboration. During her time abroad Leeyong began creating beautiful, one-off party dresses from vintage kimono and obi material under her label, The Fourth Daughter. Now back in Australia Leeyong continues writing on sustainable and ethical fashion for publications such as Peppermint, advocating for Fair Trade fashion through various Melbourne projects, while blogging her own adventures in suburban op-shop recycling and refashioning as ‘a showcase of what even the wastelands of fashion can offer to the world’. stylewilderness.blogspot.com

Past Talks