Anyone
can reel off their favorite Australian actresses—Margot Robbie, Cate
Blanchett—but your favorite Aussie designers? Here’s one to remember:
Kym Ellery.
The Sydney-based talent – known for her tailored-yet-fluid
architectural silhouettes with extreme volume and innovative fabric –
has enjoyed the fashion industry’s attention since launching her
eponymous label in 2007.
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| Kym Ellery |
"I have always loved fashion," said the 30-year-old designer, who grew
up making textiles and ceramics with her artist mother. "I was a very
quiet child and my mother says the first time that I had an opinion was
at the age of four when she refused to buy me a white frilly skirt with
pink polka dots. Apparently I
threw a tantrum on the shop floor and my mother was so in shock that she bought it for me. It's all been about fashion ever since." She told Australia's
Russh magazine
Curious
to know more about her fashion world, and to sniff out the new collection, Yahoo Style
met up with Ellery the day before her Paris show. They found the designer
knee-deep in model fittings in a loft-style studio in the Oberkampf
district. Dressed in a black mohair Céline sweater and a black skirt
with a high side-split from one of her own collections (“It’s silk rayon
and cotton jersey that’s been fused onto a foam layer, it’s like
wearing a little sleeping bag”), she looked the epitome of cool with her
hair pulled back in a messy topknot, vivid red-and-blue Céline sneakers
on her feet. For someone who grew up in “an isolated city called
Perth,” this girl is certainly going places.
Yahoo Style: We’re here in rainy Oberkampf, but how’s life in Sydney?
Kym Ellery: I
live an hour out of the city, in Palm Beach. I’ve lived there nearly
three years because my partner is a pro surfer; I grew up in Perth with a
proper
surfing
family so I have an affinity with the ocean, and he obviously does too.
We’ve chosen to be an hour out so that we can be on a beautiful part of
the ocean, in a beautiful house, with nature and birds and a big
kitchen so that I can cook. Then, when I travel – I take the collection
to Paris, New York, and Milan four times a year – it’s where I get to
have nice dinners and see my friends.
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| Kym Ellery |
Your Spring-Summer 2016 collection also evokes the ocean…
Yes, it’s inspired by
Christo and Jeanne-Claude,
who came to Australia in 1969 and ‘wrapped’ the coastline of Little Bay
[with fabric and rope]. I’ve always found that artwork so powerful. I
wanted to approach the wrapping of the female form in a similar way to
how they approached wrapping the coastline, taking different elements
from their work to drape the body, gather, put metal eyelets throughout,
ties and ropes and things strung on, but also referencing the part of
the collection that’s become the brand’s DNA – the flare and the volumes
on parts of the body – but in a new way.
Any other new directions?
It
was really about trying to lighten it up, in terms of fabric weights.
It’s ironic that I’m Australian and I’m attracted to denser fabric, but
it’s more to support the architecture of the designs… I love the suits
with curtained panels around the arms that are then tied up. There are
some pretty grand silhouettes with fabric and volume, dresses in metal
fabrics that reminded me of the ocean’s surface – metal fabrics that
crunch up – but also pieces in abstract floral prints based on native
Australian flowers.
One of your signatures is the flared pant.
In
my second collection I did a flare. It wasn’t even the moment – that’s
how long I’ve been doing it, I suppose. But my schooling being Russh
magazine, where it was all about these It-girls from the ’60s and ’70s,
that stayed with me. At this formative age, where I was forming my own
style and being around the fashion director and the fashion editor of Russh,
you’re seeing what they’re liking and you’re forming your own opinion…
I’m actually really happy that I was there and not somewhere else at
such an impressionable age, absorbing things that wouldn’t help me
define my own signature.
Do you recall your first designer yearnings?
Mum
said that when I was little all I would do is draw ladies with really
tall hats, or shoes with bows. And even at eight or nine I can remember
spending all my lunch breaks at school drawing clothes. I didn’t know
who Balenciaga was but I did a bit of modeling when I was young, went to
Sydney and that’s where I learned about fashion. I didn’t read glossy
magazines, I read art books and lots of novels as a child.
So did you first make pieces as a teenager?
It
was kind of making something to wear on a Saturday night and my
girlfriends eventually were like, ‘Oh you made that? Can you make me a
top?’
Isabel Marant started out like that…Can you remember any specific pieces?
Loads,
they were probably very slutty – it was back when I was 18 and started
clubbing and I remember one girlfriend wanted me to make this little
backless-top number… But I suppose it was a good start in learning how
to work with different fabrics and draping on different body shapes. I
taught myself how to make patterns. I worked in a bridal shop at 13 and
my job was stitching the veils and, eventually, alterations and I really
started to understand how garments are structured and different
techniques and taught myself how to pattern-make just using my eye,
because I love the mathematical side of construction. I was good at
maths and science.
So you love pattern-making?
Ah.
It’s so much fun, so relaxing. Do you find Excel spreadsheets relaxing?
I love them. Just knowing that there’s a cell to put something in. I
think I feel relieved to put projects or ideas into something technical.
Are you launching any new categories?
Yes, fine jewelry – there’ll be some pieces in the show.
What’s the designer scene like in Australia?
There’s
lots of talent and a good market, a big chunk of the market for a lot
of international online stores comes from Australian brands. Sites like
Mytheresa.com,
whenever they list their top five countries, Australia is always in
there. Because we’re a British colony we have that same mentality as
Britain, where you get an outfit to go out. It’s not like France, where
you wear cashmere and flat shoes, it’s its own ecosystem and everyone
has their own signature. There’s the futuristic designer
Dion Lee, there’s the voluminous ’50s feminine girl
Toni Maticevski and then there’s the more deconstructed, everything-in-black thing by
STRATEAS.CARLUCCI.
So which are you?
Ah,
I guess I’m the woman’s designer. I design for women. I really think
it’s important to think about what the girl wants to wear.
Who is the Ellery client?
She’s
intelligent, she’s many ages, she travels, she’s often from other
countries and she’s coming through town. That’s what’s been really
interesting for us, as we’ve grown over the last two years. Being here
and working more and more with global stores, recognizing the different
regions and what all the women around the world want and trying to think
about all of them when you’re making a collection, from Saudi Arabia
and Kuwait to L.A.
What’s a typical day back home? How often do you go to your atelier in Sydney?
Every
day. I have a yoga teacher who comes to my place at seven. We do an
hour-and-a-half of yoga and meditation and then I cook breakfast. Then
get in the car and go to work.
Wow, don’t ever leave Australia!
You should move there, if you like the sound of it so much!
I’m scared of surfing.
Yes,
I don’t go in the water past the waist because I’m scared of sharks. A
dog got taken off the beach the other day; a man was walking his dog,
threw a ball in and this shark came in. They’re everywhere at the
moment. Poor dog…
Sounds like Jaws…
Your past three collections have featured decorative details, such as
glazed buttons, by your mother, Debra. Has she been a big creative
influence?
Yes,
she has. She sews but she’s more art-focused… I used to ask her [to
teach me to sew] and she’d be like, ‘You’re too young.’ Then we nearly
drowned, my mum and I. We were at this beach and got sucked out to sea –
the beaches are really dangerous in Australia. Apart from the sharks,
there are big waves and strong currents. We were very lucky to survive,
my brother managed to get someone to come out and get us, and Mum was a
swimming teacher, a strong swimmer. Afterwards, she was like, ‘You can
do what you want, I’ll teach you how to sew.’
View her collections
here
