The Golden Fleece

Ben Pollitt has been hailed as the new poster child for Australian wool. Assia Benmedjdoub caught up with the Friedrich Gray designer before he set off for a night (or several) in Paris.

It will be day two of fashion trade fair Rendez-Vouz Femme when this issue hits the stands. Although the Paris-based womenswear show is a relative newcomer to more established circuits - Prêt à Porter Paris for instance draws 1500 exhibitors to Rendez-Vouz's 160 - this emerging hub is where Friedrich Gray designer Ben Pollitt has decided to launch a quiet assault on the European market.

As you read this, there's a good chance Pollitt's spring/summer 2008/09 collection will be making the rounds at Espace Pierre Cardine or the Musée du Jeu de Paume, where the four-day event is staged. "I'll have a few friends there with me so we'll try and yell and scream as much as possible," he says, two weeks out from his European jaunt. "That's the goal - break into Europe because I think that's where my product is going to sell well."

Pollitt first launched his unisex label in 2006 after working as a fashion stylist in New York. It was earlier this year, however, that his innovative use of fine Australian wool was formally recognised. Vogue editor Kirstie Clements presented the designer with the title of Australian Protégé at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week (RAFW) in April, an initiative created by sister publication Vogue Italia. As part of the title, Pollitt's collection was showcased alongside European protégé's Jean Pierre Braganza, Kristian Aadnevik, Ioannis Cholidis, Julian Louie and Sandra Bucklund at RAFW.

Just a month earlier, Pollitt was announced as the L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival Designer Of The Year, presented by Australian wool giant Woolmark. Along with a $10,000 cheque, Pollitt scored a trip to the Premiere Vision trade show in Paris and a sourcing expedition to Asia. 

"Rendez-Vous wasn't part of the prize but because I was going to Paris, I thought I'd extend the trip," Pollitt says. "I'm actually really looking forward to meeting up with the wool factories in China and working on developing my own knit and different blends in different weights. All the machinery they have over there far surpasses what we have in Australia."

Pollitt will board a plane from Paris to Hong Kong on October 9 and spend a week liasing with various mills and fabric suppliers. Woolmark has also arranged for the designer to meet factories which can handle smaller production runs, essential for a designer who has a small but influential stockist base that includes The Corner Shop in Sydney and the Fat stores in Melbourne.

"At the moment, I source my fabrics from Australia and New Zealand and some leathers from Italy," he says. "It's just a little expensive at the moment to get fabrics from overseas on such small runs but hopefully I can find something on my trip."

Even before his Woolmark coup, Pollitt says close to 50 per cent of his collections were comprised from wool. Lightweight versions of the fabric suit the designer's long silhouettes and shapes, with layering and draping a common theme throughout his collections. His ongoing collaboration with Sydney-headquartered company Think Positive Prints is also sure to raise some brows in Europe and Asia.

"The way they digitally print is unique in the world because they achieve true, true colours like true blacks and true blues which is hard to achieve through digital printing [on wool]. It actually dyes into the fibres so when you pull the fabric apart and stretch it, each yarn is dyed."

"The images we used for the latest collection were like four to five metres long and if you were to chop up the garment, you'd see about eight to 10 variations of the print. That range, I had some of my highest selling pieces."

During a recent Woolmark marketing launch, Pollitt's innovative approach to wool caught the eyes of a high-profile European luxury group. While Pollitt declined to publicly name the group in the interests of maintaining negotiations, it certainly marks another coup for the designer in what has been a busy year.

"The prints we have been doing of late have gotten a lot of attention because they're self referential," he says. "The first set of prints was photos of the garments we'd made, then photos of models wearing that print from the last season. Now we've taken the print and manipulated all these images and made a new print. It's using the label as a point of inspiration."  And with that many awards sitting on your mantle piece, why wouldn't you?

By Assia Benmedjdoub