Essays

From Practicality to Spirituality in Indigenous Fashion Design

Since the arrival of the first European settlers on Western Australia’s shores, Aboriginal peoples have shown great cultural resilience in the face of a new and dominant Western society. This resilience and the continuous interaction with a changing world today are very vivid and frequently take on a playful note in the ‘fashion’ domain. The warming kangaroo booka of the south-western Nyoongar peoples has been transformed into an haute couture cape. A desert emu-feather shoe worn by the greatly feared feather footmen has morphed into a contemporary adaptation of the iconic Aussie thong.

Aboriginal participation in creating textiles, garments and accessories for themselves and a wider Australian, or even international, fashion industry is, however, not a new development.

The first documented efforts to produce accessories and textiles on a larger scale and consistent basis were probably made by Aboriginal women living at Mount Margaret Mission. With the aim of creating a livelihood for women, missionary Maysie Schenk started a cottage industry at the mission in 1923. Raffia articles including baskets, purses and handbags, seagrass shopping bags, and silk raffia brooches were among the products sold to Melbourne and Perth, catering for the market of a predominantly urban European population. Their traditional knowledge of spinning with hand-spindles enabled the women to quickly adapt to using wooden spinning wheels and looms for weaving to make their own clothing from wool. From 1921, Aboriginal women at Moore River Settlement also worked in a sewing room, producing an array of garments for various government agencies to offset the running costs of the settlement. The 1960s finally saw the Western Australian government assisting Aboriginal people with the production and sale of their own art and artefacts. With a 40-year history of producing non-indigenous items for a non-indigenous market, it comes as no surprise that the objects created from the 1960s onwards were still largely catering for a Western market, with the essential difference that the motives, designs and stories told now were Aboriginal.

Bungara, 2010.

Photo by Greg Woodward

Photo copyright of WA Musuem.

The establishment of trading agencies, marketing outlets and art centres were vital steps in developing an Aboriginal art market. Marribank Family Centre near Katanning, established in 1979 on the grounds of the previous Carrolup Mission, was one of these art centres. The production of hand-painted silk fabrics and scarves, pottery and jewellery soon flourished, leading to the establishment of two businesses: Targoola Textiles and Kurin Moya Fashion House. Their products featured prominently during 1985 NAIDOC week, followed by gala fashion shows at the University of Western Australia (1986), Birrukmarri Gallery (1987) in Fremantle¹ and an exhibition in Paris.

Collaboration between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal artists is fruitful and often long lasting. A formidable example is Jimmy Pike and his 22-year involvement with his former prison art teachers, Stephen Culley and David Wroth, who initiated the company Desert Design. The application of Pike’s designs on textiles used in high-fashion garments, accessories and furnishings brought him worldwide recognition as one of ‘the greatest Australian textile designers’² as well as a great indigenous artist.

Similarly, Perth-based fibre artist Nalda Searles has collaborated with numerous non-Aboriginal artists, such as printer John Parkes and ceramicist Eileen Keys, and Aboriginal artists including the Tjanpi Desert Weavers and, most consistently, Mary Pantjiti McLean. Notable is the cross-cultural nature of her engagements, an exchange of knowledge and skills woven together into the final artwork, for example, the sculpture group of the Seven Sisters, a pair of feather slippers or the beautiful necklaces.³

In the 1980s Australian fashion designers focused more on the Australian landscape and its ancient people. Indigenous designs became en vogue, and Aboriginal designers made their way in the fashion industry. Ron Gidgup and Francine Kickett pioneered in the fashion industry in Western Australia. Gidgup successfully developed his own label, Gidge Design Studio, producing one-off textiles and garments. He combined traditional and spiritual symbolic references with colours that relate to the natural environment.4 Over the next ten years his work was celebrated in many exhibitions and awards and collected by several national institutions, including the Western Australian Museum and the Art Gallery of Western Australia. Likewise, Francine Kickett’s work is inspired by the Nyoongar landscape, with an interest in the femininity of the local fauna and flora. She presented her fabrics and garments in Western Australia and overseas.⁵ Gidgup and Kickett have inspired numerous Aboriginal designers to establish themselves in the fashion industry.⁶

Very successful also has been the recent collaboration between the London/Fremantle fashion house Antipodium with Aboriginal artists from the Geraldton region to create their 2010 autumn/winter AB-FAB collection. The idea was born when Fenella Peacock and Geoffrey Finch from Antipodium were shopping at the Fremantle markets and saw an Aboriginal youth from Geraldton wearing a vibrant scarf and beanie. Artsource supplied contacts for Yamaji Art and four artists provided artwork included in the collection. Manapa Butler’s (Kayili Art/Yamaji Art) design and Barbara Merritt’s paintings were printed on fabrics made into T-shirts, dresses and skirts. Roy Merritt and Ruby McIntosh contributed individual pieces made to order.

AB-FAB, a pun on the British TV show Absolutely Fabulous, is also a play with words — ‘Aboriginal fabulous’. Peacock stated that Antipodium wants to show the world how terrific Yamaji people are and how beautiful their work is.⁷ The artists cherish the opportunity of receiving national and international exposure.

Barbara Merritt’s painting, which was used for the fabric pattern, was created in the framework of another collaborative project. The Ilgarijiri project brought together artists from the Mid-West and Geraldton region with Perth-based radio astronomers to exchange knowledge and understanding of the sky. Barbara is passionate about the night sky, particularly as one can see it so clearly from Mullewa, where she was raised. Her Seven Sisters painting portrays aspects of one of the most important Aboriginal stories about the constellation, known to us as the Pleiades.

Megascarf

Photo by Greg Woodward

Photo copyright of WA Musuem

Roy Merritt learnt the intriguing knotting-weaving technique he uses in his scarves when he attended school at his homeland Mullewa aged ten or eleven. When he retired a couple of years ago he decided to try it out again. He recalls: ‘I went to the tip and picked up all the materials, the wood and the wool and tried it. I figured it out again. I have always worked and I need things to do.’⁸

Since Ruby McIntosh’s three children have grown up she has time to be creative. She is skilful in a variety of techniques, which she combines in her soft-toy animals. The bodies are crocheted and embroidered, and often have sewn, felted paws. Draping a goanna as a stole around the neck is not so far from carrying a dead one to be cooked on the fire.

The wearability of fashion accessories is challenged in Janine McAullay Bott’s more sculptural approach. Her sculptures tell stories of her Nyoongar family, honouring their strength, spirit and culture. Her first hat was the feathered cone hat she made as a request for a ceremonial hat. She recalls:

I used the cone shape to create something that would give the wearer height, so they would be taller than the audience they were dancing for. I adorned it with feathers to create a greater symbolism for ceremony. The use of feathers was inspired by the thought of birds and flight and the freedom of movement. For many years indigenous people weren’t allowed to perform their corroborrees and for many years they would hide in the bush to meet.⁹

Janine also decorated a puppet soldier and was formed as a slouch hat worn by Australian army personnel as a badge of honour. ‘My grandfather always kept his army hat. He had it hanging on the hook on the hallstand for years.’¹⁰

Janine used to hate the hats from her school uniform, but she appreciated the various hats her mother and grandmother used on Sundays or special occasions like funerals or races. Casablanca and Helmet are merry hats recreating the happiness of social occasions, during the roaring 1920s.

With her bags, Janine reminds us of the importance for Aboriginal people of carrying containers. Belongings and bush tucker were carried in a coolamon or dillybag. ‘My mum always carried a comb and a hankie in her bag’ and ‘whatever you put in your bag becomes yours — it carries your treasured possessions and can tell a lot about you’.

Similarly, belts were accessories worn by all men in Janine’s family. ‘A belt holds things up and in … it’s a symbol of security. The notches would indicate weight loss or gain; if you were on the last notch you knew you’d put on too much weight. If grandfather ever took his belt off we knew we were in trouble.’¹¹

Today’s fast-paced fashion industry is enriched by the depth and timelessness of Aboriginal designs. Fashion and its accessories have become more than wearable items. Aboriginal artists employ them to tell their stories of life, culture and heritage.

Acknowledgements

My sincere gratitude goes to all the people who have made this essay possible by sharing knowledge, information, images and comments with me. Among others these are Katherine Moroz, Charmaine Green, Sonia Parmenter, Anna Kanaris, Janine McAullay Bott, Nalda Searles, Christina McGuinness, Carol Hanlon, Fennella Peacock, David Wroth, Stephen Culley, Moya Smith, Alice Beale and Ludger Dinkler.

End Notes

• See Horton 1994: 665.

• Quoted from Fitzpatrick 2009:4

• The Seven Sisters life size grass sculptures were made in 2003-04 by Aboriginal artists Ivy Hopkins, Kantjupayi Benson, Jean Burke, Elaine Lane; and non-Aboriginal artists Thisbe Purich and Nalda Searles. Photo see Nicholls 2004. The feather slippers (1992) were Mary McLean's only attempt in fibre work.

• See Mia 2000: 40. Gidgup held his own fashion show, Kwobinyarn Booka, in 1993, bcame a focus in the 1994 Aboriginal Art in Fashion exhibition at the Art Gallery of Western Australia and was nominated as Aboriginal of the Year during WA's NAIDOC week in 1997. Belmont Business Enterprise Centre (BEC under Carol Hanon) helped him to establish a commercial range that was represented at Australian Fashion Week in 1999 and at the Royal Perth Show in 1999, as well as NAIDOC Week 2001.

• Kickett presented her fabrics and garments at Royal Perth Show (2000, 2001) and during NAIDOC week 2001. The following year she collaborated with Pauline Emiliani, and her designs were featured on catwalks in Australia, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

• Janette Stokes started her label Kaen Design around the same time, emphasising the one-off hand made product, which included knitted garmentsm painted wooden jewellery, and printed fabrics. In the 2000s more young Aboriginal designers tried to establish themselves in the fashion industry, among them Lilla Gagliano, under the label Kandida Design, with hand-painted scarves, textiles and garments aimed at women from eighteen to thirty-five. Joanne Pellew founded the very successful swimwear label Kooey. More recently Mick Jauncey started his urban street wear label Buli-J, and Barbara and Kara Matters (Karda Design) produce hand-painted silks including scarves, wraps and sarongs. Marlu Kuru Kuru, an initiative of Aboriginal women in Laverton, mounted an exhibition of naturally tie-dyed silk scarves at John Curtin Gallery in 2009.

• Interview with Fenella Peacock, 2010.

• Unpublished interview of Roy Merritt by Sonja Parmenter, May 2010.

• Ibid.

• Unpublished interview of Janine McAullay Bott by Anna Kanaris, April 2010.

• Ibid.

References

Fitzpatrick, K. 2009. Desert Psychedelic: Jimmy Pike. Brisbane: Artisan.