on the mauve

some sections from 'What is Chic? Investigating Fashion's Favourite Word' by Matthew Schneier:

'the majority of Carine Roitfeld's 2010 interview in Russian Vogue was all but unintelligible to the Western world — at least to the large swaths of it not versed in Cyrillic. alongside a characteristically moody Hedi Slimane portrait ran a Q&A with Roitfeld, then the editor in chief of Paris Vogue. it found its way into the Roitfeld-worshipping corners of the blogosphere, where eventually a helpful fan provided a complete translation. but for the last question, she needn't have bothered. though there is a Russian word for the single term she chose thrice over when pressed to describe herself in three words — шик, or 'shikarnyi' in everyday speech — her final answer was printed in Latin case: chic, chic, chic.

the French have a way with indefinable qualities. they have a long-established phrase for it: je ne sais quoi. so does the fashion world. it's chic. chic is when something is stylish, when something is cool, when something is proper, when something is ineffably, indescribably, great.

open a fashion magazine, load a fashion web site (including this one), attend a fashion show, or eavesdrop at a fashion party, and it is a given that you will read or hear one particular word: chic. (it hardly matters on what continent you're looking or listening; as we'll see, chic is chic is chic, in America and abroad.)

but despite its dalliances in other spheres, it's in fashion where the word has enjoyed the most constant usage. 'the word does get linked to pretty much everything at the moment and it does get thrown around pretty easily,' complains Peter Copping, creative director at Nina Ricci, whose fluttery Parisian ready-to-wear may have a better stake on the term than most. Marco Zanini, creative director at Rochas agrees. 'it is so overused, it really lost its meaning, from my point of view,' he says — so much so that a few seasons ago, he dedicated his entire collection to exploring what the word actually means. when he began searching on Google and Google Images, he 'realised that basically on the Internet it doesn't have any meaning at all. if you Google 'chic' you'll be amazed by the cheesy stuff that will pop up.'

those on the editorial side have noticed, too. two years ago, says Heather Wagner, copy director at Elle, 'we even had a meeting about it. it was on every other page. it was back when Carol Smith was our publisher; she actually noticed it and said there's a moratorium on the word 'chic.'' some arbiters are recommending restraint. 'i don't throw that word around lightly,' Tommy Ton tells me. and what the repercussions of constant usage are remains unclear.

'chic is about a way of being, because there is no specifically chic item or dress, it only depends on the person; it depends on you,' Zanini says. 'i don't think it's purely on appearance or the way somebody dresses, i think it's how they live their life,' Copping adds. 'i keep thinking back to a woman like Pauline de Rothschild, who was very refined in the way that she dressed, but then she was also known for doing the most beautiful tables for any dinner party that she gave; her apartment was beautiful; and i mean, then i want to say very chic. those people, when they have to thank someone it would be a handwritten note, not just a text that's flashed off to somebody. and i think in culture at the moment there's kind of a dumbing down on a lot of those fronts.'

voilà chic: the journey, not the destination.'

swimwear 101

with sewing, to a certain extent, there are general rules that you can learn, follow, and master - and be sure that your outcome will be of a certain quality. but sewing swimwear is a whole different beast. the machines are different, the fabric is different - its as if you are sewing for the first time in your life. and with such great expectations of quality each time we hand in a piece of assessment, its pretty unnerving to think that there is a pretty great chance that regardless of how hard we will try this semester, that we will probably be handing in some pretty sad looking stuff.
as our co-ordinator keeps mentioning, our swimwear teacher is perfect in this area - but she couldn't sew a suit to save her life. juggling both sets of skills is satisfying - and terrifying. but i know that having someone with such amazing experience be able to teach us in this area is totally rare, so i'm very excited and appreciative.
when we started this semester, i was hesitant. the thought of sewing lycra made me cringe. but i've found it really interesting - and she has reminded us that you can be completely modern and high-fashion with this fabric.. it's not all just about overpriced tights.

so far, we have learned to make a triangle bikini, bikini bottoms, bike shorts, a long-sleeved rashie with a zip, basic tights, a backless leotard, a sports bra and different variatons of bra cups. i haven't hard time to finish all of them (like the rash top), and not all are pictured here.
oh, and i certainly didn't choose the colours of fabrics that we have been working with!
aaand the machine spewed when i made the bikini bottoms - i may be self-taught, but i'm not that poor of a sewer.

you may have already seen these via my instagram (@rachelmcgann):

the fashion conspiracy

some of my favourite parts from the book 'The Fashion Conspiracy' by Nicholas Coleridge:

i wondered why it was, alone in world fashion, that the Japanese inspired introspection. the idea that one might discuss Georgio Armani's design and its relationship with the Holy Spirit was absurd, and yet the distance between trousers and theology in Japan seemed to be a matter of punctuation.
- p85
'the egos of these people are really quite staggering, especially the hat people. half the things they're doing are like Valentino twenty years ago but they're too ignorant to know it their heroes are Body Map and Galliano but it's all been said and done by Vivienne Westwood.' - Scott Crolla
'on the other hand, the British have never quite understood what we've got here. it's like British pop music all over again. you have to go abroad to realise we're bloody influential.' - Katharine Hamnett
- p130
'my job takes up all my time and energy. creating is a harrowing business. i work in a state of anguish all year. i shut myself up, don't go out. it's a hard life, which is why i understand Proust so well; i have such an admiration for what he has written about the agony of creation.' - Yves Saint Laurent
- p192
when the Milanese chide Alaia for having no tailoring, they are really chiding him for its simplicity. Armani's tailoring is complex in structure but made to look easy; Alaia's tailoring is simple in structure but flawlessly cut his clothes appear to follow the contours of the body very closely, but actually create their own shape, inventing curves where there actually are none. it is this ingenious and counterfeit sexuality that so greatly incenses the Italians.
- p227
in Anna Piaggi there is a puzzle. mention her name in fashion circles, anywhere at all from Tokyo to Manhattan, and people say, 'ah, Anna Piaggi. but of course she is brilliant. great friend of Karl Lagerfeld's. eccentric, but very important.' and that, give or take the odd detail of her odd appearance, is just about it. for someone so much discussed, remarkably little is known about Anna Piaggi. her fame is underpinned by her rumbustious cameo roles.
- p239
right around the block from where the editors sit, way across the metaphorical Berlin Wall in the commercial zone of the fashion audience, sit the store buyers. six factors distinguish them from the fashion editors.
1 - they are dressed in newer, more powerful clothes
2 - they manager to have their hair combed out every single morning for the shows, even on the 21st dawn of the 25 day tour, 4 capital circuit
3 - their underlying paranoia is 2 or 3 points higher than even the fashion editors'
4 - they have tens of millions of dollars to distribute in orders between New York, Milan, Paris and London (and spend it in that sequent to this percentage: New York 82.3%, Milan 9%, Paris 8.5%, London 0.2%)
5 - they stay in enormous, expensive suites at the Crillon or the Bristol in Paris, or Claridges or the Berkeley in London. their rooms are three times as comfortable as those of the editors
6 - they are irritated by their bad seats at fashion shows. they feel discriminated against, and cannot understand why even quite mediocre fashion writers, whose influence they doubt will shift so much as a single trapeze-line skirt, should be given priority vantage points, when they - the store buyers - are there with their massive corporate cheque books and a combined 'open to buy' (as they call their bugdget) of $700 million a season.
- p258
'people who intellectualise fashion, it makes me sick. history and fashion, thought and fashion, i hate it, my god i hate the talk. all those buyers are so serious, i can't believe it, they're so fickle those stupid buyers.' - Manolo Blahnik
- p269
a strange phenomenon of people in fashion is that, paranoid about each other though they are, the impulse to eat together at the same few restaurants is overriding. they will fly from one seam of the globe to another - from Milan to New York for collections, from London to Tokyo for a Hanae Mori showcase of designers - and no sooner have they arrived than they're checking out the fashion restaurants. these are by no means always the same places as fashionable restaurants. fashion thrives on shortages: shortages of tickets for the shows, shortages of front-row seats, shortages of available clothes to photograph from the designers' public relations offices. the competitiveness, the potential for humiliation, the worry and paranoia over the availability of a table for four is only another station in the fashion victim's descent into mania.
- p298
what is striking about the new generation of the copyist, is the speed and cynicism with which a designer collection moves into un-designer labels in peripheral markets, and of increased designer consciousness.
'South Africans are the worst of the lot and impossible to sue. they have the pictures of your show over there within three days and they're ready to swing. they turn the stuff round in seconds and in the townships, especially dresses. there's one company in South Africa that specialises in ripping of Kenzo, line for line, seam for seam. they make a fortune - more than Kenzo i reckon - and there's nothing that Kenzo can do about it.' - Jasper Conran
overnight couriering of catwalk photographs to pirate manufacturers is the Archilles' heel of designer copyright. it is difficult to prevent, since the photographers themselves are not always aware of their part of the conspiracy. a bogus South African or Far East news agency asks for second rights on catwalk pictures the photographer is taking for an accredited magazine. a price is set, not on the number of pictures published, but at an inclusive rate for three sets of transparencies of the show. the photographer then has no way of knowing that his pictures are never published at all. instead they are parcelled up in a Jiffy bag together with sketches from the designer's publicity portfolio, and directed to the factory. what is new is the widespread counterfeiting of designer clothes, including the label sewn inside, and the attempt to pass them off as the real thing.
- p287

she said she was wearing Jason wu. it was Jason Wu for Target

my moodboard:


i ended up exploring an oceanic theme. this first came about via looking into the Indian / Hindu ideas of reincarnation / karma. i looked at artistic interpretations of this, and found a lot of images that depicted something that was half human / half animal, or even half human / half tree, and etc. out of these images, i found the ocean-themed ones the most interesting - particularly an image of a woman with the bottom half of a squid.
i drew a squid with the intention of also drawing a human and merging the two (for my prints), but ran out of time. so unfortunately, it ended up just being a squid on its own.
the ocean theme got me enjoying images such as squid tentacles, barnacles and mermaids. i am going to lasercut some barnacle/ squid tentacle sort of holes of differing sizes in random locations (particularly concentrated toward the hem) and an uneven, irregular hem line as well with the lasercutter into the ruffles on my bikini bottoms - to address the industrial design part of the brief.

my prints:




some pages from my journal:

homme away from home

this semester, the brief has been about swimwear. so we have gotten a swimwear designer in to teach the design aspect, partially - but more so; the manufacturing. she has been in the swimwear business since she was a teenager, so she knows her away around every machine and every finishinh technique.

the brief included the following points that had to be addressed:
(i) INDIA - implications from growing middle class - from design perspective
= diversity of culture / rich use of textile traditions / modern use of colour and print
= for a starting point for our design research - it could be subtley or heavily influencial in our process
(ii) MODESTY - ingrained in Indian culture / religious values
= forward-thinking social trend with the emergence of our modern global world
= not about being modest in colour / print / texture / design creativity
= revealing less / restraint / being modest (where appropriate) with body exposure
= this part didn't necessarily apply to all garments - we could design a swimsuit, as long as there was something modest to be able to wear over the top, where the situation was appropriate
(iii) CLIMATIC CONDITIONS - pertinent to our region (sun safety in this case)
= a new approach to the sun safe message - perhaps masked by other motives that appeal to all audiences (make sun safety about fashion - not function)
= the message may need to be stealthily applied - modesty may be one of the answers
= it also addresses staying cool in heat - eg. fabrication and natural fibres / laser-cut ventilation)
(iv) DIGITAL PRINTING - experiment with colour / print - design three prints
(v) ARTEFACT PROTOTYPING - use of industrial design facilities at uni - eg. laer cutting / 3d printing / welding..




this is the look i'll be making:

Jon Hamm is no more. he has now fused with Don Draper to become Donjon Draperham

i wish i had more time to be on here, but uni is - as always - all-consuming. and most of my assessment isn't even due for at least another week or two !

as a sort of filler post, here are some of my favourite things that i have purchased since late last year. how embarrassing that it has been that long since i have been blogging in full-swing.
some of these brands i hadn't heard of before i worked in my current wholesaling job, but it is always fun to find some newbies. maybe you won't have heard of them until now either.


Goodnight Macaroon skirt || Aje 'Calypso' dress from their sample sale || Sabo Skirt cropped top || Sabo Skirt draped top


Premonition shorts (x 2) || Toby Heart Ginger 'Copenhagen' knit || Therese Rawsthorne dress from their sample sale


Toby Heart Ginger cross back cropped top (you can't see but it has a great cross back detail - i bought it in white as well) || Romance was born tee || Premonition pants

some of my favourite fashion quotes

- '..but then you look at it and it’s like there’s not that charm to it. if you’re just wrapping yourself in the security of a bunch of designer names, it comes off in the photograph. it lacks the uniqueness as opposed to someone who has the balls – or not balls.’ – Scott Schuman

'whatever you do, don’t be safe because fashion is just full of the same fucking shit. be McQueen or Christopher Kane' – Jane Morley (my first fashion design teacher)

'i think a lot of people say blogs have democratised fashion, but i don’t know if that’s necessarily true. i think it’s created a lot more voices, but also a lot more noise. a lot of people say the ground work has already been set as to who the important bloggers are, but it’s kind of like music, you know? one guy with a guitar can mean more to people than an entire..' - Scott Schuman

what’s exciting you most about the fashion industry right now? 'how there are no trends or people who dictate fashion, everyone finds what they love and makes it important to them.' - unknown

'..i think that’s why we’re seeing a lot of young designers emerging from rural and regional Queensland, because when you grow up without being submerged in fashion, you want it even more. you could say that those who grow up in those traditional fashion centres like Sydney or Melbourne take fashion for granted.' – Michael Finch

'i always ran my company like a company. i wanted people to recognise my work and i wanted to sell clothes. its such a silly and obvious thing, but so many designers with lots of press don’t sell clothes. my goal has always been to make exceptionally beautiful clothes that woman want to own.' – Jason Wu

'as joseph Altuzarra explains it, ‘its how the editors wear their coats.’' (jackets worn over shoulders like capes - Elin Kling

'i’m not afraid of walking down the street in something that people think is crazy. what i can’t stand is looking like everybody else.' - Mary-Kate Olsen
design should be something that has function, fits into a person’s ordinary everyday life, but makes her feel a bit extraordinary.

'you’re considered superficial and silly if you’re interestd in fashion, but i think you can be substantial and still be interested in frivolity.' – Sofia Coppola

'women often don’t want to admit that they like fashion. and yet fashion enthrals everyone, from the taxi driver to the mega-intellectual. i have often asked myself why this is. i don’t know the answer.' - Miuccia Prada

stop hate criming my accessories

some of my most memorable sections of Kirstie Clements' 'The Vogue Factor' novel about her life leading up until her departure from Australian Vogue:

society is understandably concerned about the issues surrounding body image and eating disorders, and the dangerous and unrealistic messages being sent to young women via fashion journals. when it comes to who should be blamed for the portrayal of overly thin models, magazine editors are in the direct line of fire, but the conundrum is more complex. the 'fit model' begins the fashion process: designer outfits are created around a live, in-house skeleton. very few designers have a curvy or petite fit model. these collections are then sent to the runway, worn by tall, pin-thin models because that's the way the designer wants to see the clothes fall. there will also be various casting directors and stylists involved, who have a vision of the type of women they envisage wearing these clothes. for some bizarre reason, it seems they prefer her to be young, coltish, six-foot tall and built like a prepubescent boy.
it is too simplistic to blame mysognistic men, although in some cases i believe that criticism is deserved. there are a few male fashion designers i would like to personally strangle. but there are many female fashion editors who perpetuate the stereotype, women who often have a major eating disorder of their own. they get so caught up in the hype of how brilliant clothes look on a size 4 they cannot see the inherent dagner in the message. it cannot be denied that visually, clothes fall better on a slimmer frame, but there is slim, and then there is scary skinny.
after the shows, the collection is made available for the press to use for their shoots. these are the samples we all work with an they are obviously the size of the model who will fit into these tiny sizes. there are no bigger samples available, and in any case, the designer probably has no interest in seeing their clothes on larger women.
as a Vogue editor, i was of the opinion that we didn't necessarily need to feature size 14-plus models in every issue. it is a fashion magazine; we are showcasing the clothes. i am of the belief that an intelligent reader understands that a model is chosen because she carries clothes well. some fashion would suit a curvier girl, some wouldn't. i see no problem with presenting a healthy, toned, size Australian 10. but as sample sizes from the runway shows became smaller and smaller, 10 was no longer an option and the girls were dieting drastically to stay in the game.
it is the ultimate vicious cycle.
- p63
Couture is, by its very nature a luxury, and only very select journalists were in attendance. it was not exactly snobbery, but if you don't have the Couture customers, you don't get the chair. my colleagues and i used to call it the 'you're only as good as your economy' rule.
- p78
after i sat down at the table, a junior media buyer from an advertising agency who was seated opposite, and looked to be about 20-years-old, picked up his vintage Moet & Chandon and eyeballed me, clearly unimpressed. 'what are you going to do for the Vogue readers who don't know who Karl Lagerfeld is? for example, i don't,' he smirke, as if he was slapping down a trump card. i had no answer.
he was simply following the ignorant and ungenerous Australian tradition of refusing to be impressed by anyone or anything, even one of the world's greatest living fashion designers. it's moments like these when you appreciate what your ad team has to contend with on a daily basis. it took all of my self-control not to snatch the champagne out of his hand.
- p142
most people would assume that because you're with Vogue a red carpet is rolled out of your limousine and a minion will arrive to show you to your chair next to Anna Wintour. ah, no. you have to earn your seat on the bench. circumstances and pecking orders have changed so much now though, there will probably be a really thin, beautiful, Russian trust fund-blogger wearing current season Balmain and an online retail buyer from Iceland in front of you anyway.
- p173
since the emergence of the street-style photographer and blogger, the amount of 'poseurs' that exist outside and inside the shows has become a whole new business. the coverage of street fashionistas of indeterminate means is as important as the designer content, and may even be devoted more space.
social media has democratised fashion commentary and created a new order of power players in the industry. decades of experience at revered mastheads and the ability to articulate intelligently may prove to be of very little value in the near future.
it's getting harder to find honest, relevant criticism because the new fashion commentators are relentlessly positive in their reviews. it's within their interest to be so. they want to go to the shows. i would like to see more of them be truly critical, especially if they are in the fortunate position of not yet having any advertisers who could pull out.
- p179

creep it real

i've already done two posts previously on my design assessment for the 2nd semester of last year, and never really got around to finding the time to finish (or start) posting the third. the third designer/s that i focussed on was Gail Reid (now Harwood, i believe?) of Gail Sorronda notoriety.
it's a bit of a blogger bore that i love her and her work to bits, but Gail definitely holds a special place in my heart. for starters, of course, because she also studied the same degree at QUT that i am currently battling my way through.
much like Riccardo at Givenchy, i feel as though my dream design aesthetic would have a lot of similar elements to her own, and a lot of this is because of her focus on opposite and equal reaction. that is something that i always find in my own work; particularly the projects that i enjoy the most or am the most proud of. i love the balance of darkness and frivolity. i love masculinity and femininity perfectly in opposition. this is also true about garments that i own (and also shoes, homewares - you name it) and love the most. i don't have a reason for it but i'm happy not to fight the matter
she also has a fondness toward conspiracy theories. i don't necessarily believe all conspiracies, but i absolutely love to read and watch films about alternative theories. i have discovered some of my favourites through Gail, such as the Charlie Chaplin time traveller (have a little snoop on youtube if you're intrigued).


although i had found most of this information previously through my own OTT investigation and constant scouring of any new interviews, some of my favourite parts of the research that i found were:
- 'i'm always asked why i don't use colours in my collections. it's not that i'm afraid of colour, it's that i want to focus on the contrast between black and white. it works as a metaphor for the opposite and equal reaction. the shadow against light, night and day. it's natural to hvae contrasts. just as you have to suffer a little to appreciate the good things. it's about accepting the dark and the light - not trying to mish them together, but just letting them co-exist.'
- 'there is a misconception that there is limited opportunities in the industry. if you're willing to work hard, be proactive and persistent and do it for the right reasons, you will create your own opportunities.'
- 'the Murmur headpiece was inspired by Egyptian headdress and the fruit of the evergreen tree (the pine cone), symbolising eternal life. like the great Pyramid built in the centre of our physical planet, the pineal gland is located in the geometric centre of the brain and is considered the most powerful source of ethereal retinal tissue and is our window to inner vision and spirituality. Ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Buddhist and Hindu cultures (amongst many more) make reference to the symbolic pine cone.'
- 'social media is great but for a niche label like ours, you don't want to be over-bearing with promotion. sometimes i think, what would Margiela do?'
- 'i love fluidity, but i liked the idea of that bulbous shape just being captured and from the ieas of wax slowly dripping to water droplets on a glass window. i started to explore the idea of suspension.. even the idea of human suspension, like when people physically hook themselves.'
- 'anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security.'
- describing her ideal world: 'it would definitely be bi-polar! everyone would be on their own time! time would become an artificial construct and as everyone might already know, i'm always fighting the compulsion to meet my own time. so ideally, in a Utopian sense, there would be no concept of time. primarily, it would be like something called a resouce-based society where i would vanguish all monetary systems and instead you would exchange your talents so everyone would be working towards an actualisation of realising one's self. no paper-shufflers - just creative potential.'
- 'this morning we were woken by what sounded like a drone of mosquitoes wings. but alas, it was the New World Order cris-crossing the Paris sky with lines of white chemicals.'
- 'fashion shouldn't just be another opiate for the masses. research beyond the mass media.'
- (SS11): inspired by distant voices, drones and the all-seeing eye.
- 'my signature is definitely the opposite and equal reaction and that's why i create these parameters of only working monochromatically in a collection. ..you find that in all forms. it's the natural orer; the male and the female counterpart, the black and the white..'

Baroque and roll

i can't believe how long it has been since i have been on this site other than to follow others' new posts.. not once this year. i am now on semi-holidays for a few more weeks and can breathe a little. i had no plans to abandon this project but quite literally since day one of week one of the semester that has just flown by, i have been well and truly swamped by course work. it was the hardest academic period yet for me, and my one design subject alone consumed hundreds of hours and hundreds of dollars.. for a project that i'm mostly embarrassed and disheartened by. i will probably end up sharing it on here because i suppose i have already done a little bit via instagram already. we focussed on tailoring, but structure is the one thing i'm completely allergic to. i couldn't design even if i wanted to. my creative soul was choked and in creating things that i hate, i thought that i was at least ticking the boxes and creating what the teaching staff expected and desired..but i didn't even manage to achieve that. so i guess i learned that it is not worth producing something you don't believe in for someone else - because it most certainly didn't pay off for me in this case. it was an interesting learning experience though, and i'm thankful for being thrown in the deep end.

i hope to be on here more frequently again now, however, and today i am super enthusiastic to share some tidbits from a not-so-recent fashion talk by David Bush (up until this year, he was the head womenswear buyer for David Jones and is a significant and renowned figure in the local industry). up until this year, he has also personally critiqued the tailoring assessment at QUT that i just finished up. i was so devastated to learn that he wouldn't be joining us for that, as QUT's relationship was more with him through David Jones, than with him as a personal mentor. but he was generous enough to still speak with us and i loved every minute of it. i didn't necessarily learn anything new, but it was terribly reassuring to hear what he did have to say.

i believe you can listen back to the talk here.

my most noted parts:
- the quicker you know the customer, the quicker you earn money.
- without product, there is no brand. You need supply.
- a brand is based on a gut feeling. It is owned by the customer - whether or not they like or are stimulated by a product, or from the feeling they get from buying or looking at your product.
= how does the customer know to walk straight to your brand or product?
= trust - built over a period of time.
- you have a brand when someone returns to purchase over and over. If they only buy once, you have a business; not a brand.
= it is about meeting or exceeding their expectations - every time they purchase.
- some great brands have adapted or changed with the times but ultimately remained the same
= eg. Vogue - globally. You know exactly what you are going to get, yet it continues to change. The brand extensions that are employed make sense.
= eg. Ermenegildo Zegna. There is a town called Trivero in Italy that is the heart and soul of this brand. (The brand was originally built on wool-making, and today, David mentioned that you can cheekily see Zegna tags - for the fabrics - on suits made by opposing designers. What a curious situation). Paolo Zegna was a wool maker - he is ‘it and a bit’.
- stick to what it is you do - be focussed. There is nothing wrong with building a brand, but make it focussed, relevant and not just revenue-driving.
- don’t ever think about price. Inputs to value are more than price. You will go bankrupt when you stop listening to the customer. It is good to sell stuff yourself, so you can get the feedback.
- customer are fashion savvy. They know quality, they know the sewing, and so on.
- don’t worry about what everyone else is doing (other than to differentiate). Don’t make short-term decisions - you will fail. You have to know and care about finances, accountability and be inside the details. You’re the only one that really cares.
- where is your customer going to wear the garments?? ‘Commerciality’ and making money means, for example, that they can wear it to work, or that a bra can be worn with it. If you can’t answer that question, stop. You can still be innovative, but you need to be able to wear it somewhere or more than once. It has got to be adaptable - for example, worn from lunch to cocktails.
- does a potential stockist have the right customer for you? How is the brand marketed? Who are you sitting alongside in the store? What is the retailer’s long-term strategy.. is it consistent? What are you getting out of it? You have to cost all of this into the garment.
- take your time. No deal is better than a bad deal - for example, if Myer or Target come knocking.
- if you’re not failing sometimes, you’re probably not trying hard enough, or being innovative enough.
- there is no prize for coming first. The prize is longevity. The prize is the holiday, the car, the revenue..

even though i have had such a massive absence from here, i hope you will join me again for chapter 2.