Fraserlive: Moulage for madam

Pierre believed in 'moulage', a term used to describe designing on the body - or more usually on a mannequin, also known as the 'demi-lady'.

Most designers are taught to dream up a style, draw it, make a pattern, cut the fabric, sew it up and then see how it looks on the body. Moulage does things from the other end. It is a rare method in Australia and even rarer to find anybody who can teach it.

But don't despair, there is Dr Meike Leppens. She's not a doctor you would go to with a worrying lump because she did her doctorate on 'The Internationalisation of Australian Design'. She's taught design at a couple of Sydney's leading fashion institutions and about three years ago set up an unofficial school of her own in an old Chippendale warehouse.
Meike runs highly individual courses in 'upskilling'. Her students may be attending other schools or they may be working in a fashion business already. They would tyMeike's teaching is delivered in intense, one on one nine week terms. She accepts only between 30 and 40 students a year, which means this is not cheap education. Each is interviewed to establish aspirations and the right chemistry between student and teacher. They are also asked searching questions about where they want to be in five to ten years. There are no group classes. Each course is individual, depending on the desired outcome.

Apart from moulage designing, Meike teaches how to market research and how to set up and run a fashion business in Australia.

Every now and again, she tells me, she makes a rare find, somebody that is destined for greatness. Currently there is one such person who stands out from an already talented student line-up. Who is it? Predictably, Meike won't tell.

T-riffic
Others have done the big banana, the big pineapple, the giant clam and the huge crayfish, but Tim Littlemore has taken on rag trade immortality by giving us the big T-shirt.

It has been constructed out of bombproof ply on the outside of his warehouse building in Botany Road, Alexandria. The artwork is of a traditional white t-shirt on a red background. Tim estimates its size is XX to the power of 50 - at least. It has given the otherwise conservative suburb of Alexandria definition and a certain amount of tourist attraction. Busses coming from the airport now go past the big T-shirt and the driver slows down while An earlier attempt at having the giant T-shirt higher than the roof of the warehouse had to be abandoned when prevailing winds began to pull the entire brick building across Botany Road and into the path of on-coming traffic.

Why has Tim done this? "It seemed like a good idea at the time," he said, "but I can't remember which time that was. Anyway, being a T-shirt landmark is proving to be good for business."

Phantom factory
I heard a good story recently.

Some time ago, Country Road in Melbourne placed a big order for shirts with a Sydney manufacturer who was getting all his production from well paid, happy outworkers. It seems that Country Road had signed on to the 'no sweat' campaign in which it was required to demonstrate that all its clothing was being made in factories. The very mention of outworkers enraged the union - which would have attacked CR if it had sniffed the scent of sweat.

The CR buyer gave notice to the manufacturer that she would fly up from Melbourne the following Monday for an inspection of 'the factory'. Failure to comply with this request would result in the cancellation of the shirts.

The manufacturer managed to borrow some space from a friend who had a warehouse in Alexandria and then proceeded to place in it 12 sewing machines, two steam presses and some storage bins. He had a sign hurriedly made up and nailed over the door of the building.

When the buyer arrived she was no pushover. She spent half a day carefully watching the machinists sewing up the cut work that was being brought in. When she departed, the 'set' was dismantled and the machinists went back home where they preferred to work anyway.

When the buyer promised that for her next visit she would arrive notice, the manufacturer ceased making for Country Road.