Big blue blue

I know it is fashionable to bag the latest Australian designed Olympic uniform and the Qantas uniforms when they are paraded for the first time. Then the media circus moves off to the next topic leaving the public to get used to the clobber - and in some cases even grow to like it.

But I can't say I'll ever like our Olympic effort for Beijing. Talk about thumbnails dipped in tar, those opening ceremony uniforms were made from shiny white fabric dipped in blue dye. The further the dye ran down the fabric the deeper the blue. Magic stuff.

But when it came to competition track suits and hard yards gear we got back to the good old wattle colours of green and gold. Obviously, the organisers were not brave enough to turn everybody gravity-blue all the time.

For the next Olympics, how about a competition among designers  - maybe to be judged by public vote. Or, if we must make a private deal, engage the designer who did the uniforms for Hungary. They were a classy, beautifully designed range of garments. The Chinese were ethnic, but elegant. Even the Americans looked okay. But the Aussies? Yobbo! Yobbo! Yoboo! oi! oi! oi!.

Signs of saving

Nectar Boutique in Sydney's Edgecliff was recently mentioned here for its clever sign: "The Big Mistake Sale".
Obviously overwhelmed by the beneficial publicity from appearing in this column, it has come up with another sale sign, signalling perhaps that the big mistake sign could have been a big mistake in itself. The latest sign reads: "Make Me an Offer".

Clearly, with now two confronting signs, the proprietor is in money-preservation mode and I'd like to help. My advice is to cut up the signs and re-arrange the words for subsequent display, thus not only saving sign-writing expenses but also demonstrating some literary skills.

For instance, a sign to appeal to those just learning English: "Me make big mistake" or the jobbers creed: "Offer Me a Mistake" or, if the owner wants out "Make me a Big Offer" There are other possibilities, which multiply hugely by cutting up the letters to form new words, but I'll leave that to others cleverer than me.

Love your shirt, officer

It seems that Bruck Textiles has not yet abandoned the idea of supplying woven fabrics to the Australian market. In fact, according to an insider, the company is actually investing in more weaving machinery to refine and extend its production.
While Bruck is not the force it was in supplying fashion fabrics for local sewing, it still does significant business in the less visible markets such as the police force, armed forces and some corporate. This is because government instrumentalities are regulation-bound to use fabrics made in Australia - even though the imported equivalent would be considerably cheaper. While this amounts to protection to augment the current duty rate, it does keep the weaving business alive, a move I applaud.

The shirts that go on Victorian coppers, for instance, are supplied by Bruck to Yakka which holds the current garment contract. Bruck imports the polyester/cotton yarn (economies of scale would prevent it from being spun at Wangaratta) and weaves and finishes it locally. 

The only downside of this operation is that Bruck is not really a shirt fabric specialist and can only get shirtings down to about 135 gsm. in weight. Thus the Victorian coppers get around in somewhat thick shirts which may be okay for outdoors in Melbourne winters but not so good for summer. And the further north you go the less suitable the Bruck shirting fabrics become. On the plus side, thick shirts are tougher, last longer and slow down bullets better than thin shirts.

One of the ironies of insisting on Australian made for the fabric is that the shirts are sewn in Fiji under a special duty deal to keep Fijian clothing factories operating  - while Australian clothing factories are going the way of the Dodo bird.
Although there have been mutterings about how much financial support various governments have given Bruck to keep its doors open, the fact it has survived pleases me no end.

I'm old enough to remember a thriving weaving industry in Australia. Just about every country town used to have a woollen mill and we made high quality worsted suitings. Bradmill and National Textiles made gutsy cottons and denim while Bruck pumped out zillions of metres of polyester/viscose gabardine.

Weaving mills need garment customers and, as sewing was forced offshore by tariff reductions, the textile mills died. But through the skill, (many would say cunning) of Philip Bart, Bruck is soldiering on, although I wonder for how long. There is something cockeyed about governments decimating the TCF industries in Australia while still insisting on made in Australia textiles for their folk in uniform.

By Fraser McEwing