An Illustrated Fashion Blog by Angie Réhe

This week on The New Black on 3RRR, we kind of free-balled it, meandering through a conversation about all things fashion, through the eyes of myself and my two fabulous guests, fashion designer Gwendolynne Burkin, and head designer for Calibre, Ty Henschke. We’ve all worked in the fashion industry for *some time* and have a lot to say. Sadly an hour passes in a flash and so many of our gossipy little stories went untold. Next time…

Gwendolynne “makes people feel beautiful” through her gorgeous, romantic creations, which you can check out here (and above).

Ty keeps the guys looking hot and sharp in beautifully tailored suits of the highest quality fabrications.

We soundtracked the show with tracks from memorable fashion parades we’ve been to or been part of, from recent to distant past. One of the standouts was one of Gwendolynne’s early fashion parade memories – the Bicentennial Wool parade at the Sydney Opera House, featuring the designs of Claude Montana amongst others, and the track was Art of Noise – Moments in Love. Enjoy.

Oh and here’s us!

And the all-important link – you can listen back to the show here!

AX

Too late to say Happy Xmas? Of course not! Not everyone has even received my Xmas cards yet, naturally. I created this racy lass for BMW Australia, in partnership with Vogue Australia – I know, right? Managed beautifully by The Illustration Room, and animated by Greg Stewart. Go team! We all loved it so much we did one for the boys too…

It’s been tough – and when I say tough I mean tough like the New York marathon – to get myself to start doing some actual “work” this new year. The summer list was so long, so unrealistic, that no wonder I feel I can’t possibly be calling time on it yet. And don’t even start me on not making it to the beach yet!! I can’t even imagine how I used to cope dragging my arse to workplaces that I didn’t like – I work for myself, doing something I love, from my HOME STUDIO, and yet I still couldn’t bring myself to get back to it?

I decided to take the prep-school approach – begin on a Friday, just in time for a weekend. Friday afternoon, actually…

In today’s edition of The New Black on 3RRR radio it was all about death and rebirth. I spoke with the beautifully eloquent Dr Pia Interlandi about her work in creating Garments for the Grave, and her incredible recent commission by the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York, for which she created a Little Black (Death) Dress for their current exhibition Items: Is Fashion Modern? You can see can see a brilliant set of images from the exhibition on their website. Worth searching out also is the documentary made for the ABC Artscape series – Soul, which documented Pia’s first collaboration with a client. Her originality and depth of thought is both touching and fascinating, and I love that she is helping to teach people to stare their death fears down.

We took a hook turn after that and welcomed to the studio fashion journalist Jan Breen Burns of VoxFrock, and The Age senior writer Kerrie O’Brien. Jan spent 12 years as fashion editor for The Age, at a time when they switched from print-first to digital-first, and Kerrie specialises in writing about the arts and entertainment areas, having worked on many areas of The Age including Spectrum, Epicure, EG, Domain. We chatted about how (fashion) writing and reporting has changed, the question of Are magazines dead? (Answer: NO – circulation is down but readership is UP), and the disruption in consumer habits that sees us not feeling the need to own things – we stream music, read magazines and newspapers online, car-share or Uber – as usual, it’s all inter-connected. We touched on the new disseminators of information – influencers. And more.

You can listen back to the program here.

Above: (L-R) Pia Interlandi, Kerrie O’Brien, Jan Breen Burns

Pia’s Little Black (Death) Dress, currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The black dye is heat sensitive and turns to white when touched, then fades back to black.

Pia’s beautiful Garments for the Grave, described by someone as “Made from ivory coloured silk, cotton and hemp, without any metal zippers, plastic buttons, or synthetic firbres, the garments are completely biodegradable. The effect, including delicate silk pockets for the hands and feet, is reminiscent of a beekeeper who has fallen asleep wearing Comme De Garcons.”

Ah yes, if you have just read the entire archive of this blog you will have seen this sketch – I’ve been loving drawing the brilliant designs of Preston Zly for *quite some time*. On today’s episode 2 of The New Black on 3RRR radio we chatted all things SHOES (including just how many pairs I own) with the brilliant designers behind the brand – Peter Zly and Johanna Preston. What a treat. They are passionate and incredibly knowledgeable about the art and craft of designing and making shoes. You can see touch and smell their designs at their studio store at The Rear 219 Smith St Fitzroy (we’re talking Melbourne here) and check out their website here, or their instagram @prestonzly. Oh, and here’s Peter and Johanna!

After shoes we brought in Anthony Capon, designer for Et Al, and Bridal couture designer Craig Braybrook. Aside from being friends, they have both featured on Project Runway Australia – Anthony WON Season 2, and Craig was runner up in Season 3. Interesting to hear about their very different work, and being cast on Project Runway by the producers who got each of their personalities all wrong – can you tell who was naughty and who was nice?

You’ll have to listen back to the show to find out, and hear about just how far back Craig and I go. You can listen here, and finally I remembered to do a selfie with my guests – better late than never. Check out Anthony’s Instagram @i_am_anthonycapon and Craig’s @craigbraybrookcouture – They are two very talented guys, as well as being a whole lot of mischief. Enjoy.

I think the picture says it all, no?

Whatever this day does or does not mean to you, I hope it’s a lovely one. xx

Because, well, who wanted to sleep in all summer anyway right?

A little-known snippet of information about me is that just for fun, I hang out at 3RRR radio here in Melbourne and do Graveyard shows (that’s 2am-6am, yes – prime time) and fill spots for various people’s shows. You see I needed a new hobby when my fave hobby – drawing – became my job… No ambition here, I just love to do stuff that scares and challenges me a bit. So I stepped it up a notch this summer by committing to my very own fashion-themed summer show – Sundays 11am-12pm for 6 weeks starting today, and guess what? The show is called The New Black, and each week I’ll post a summary, some pics, and a link to listen back to the show. Oh wait, except I did the first show this morning and forgot to take any pics!!! Am I serious? Sadly yes… grrr.

Episode 1 was themed “Why does everything look the same?” I was joined for the whole show by Karen Webster, one-time CEO of the L’oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival (from 2005-2010) and senior management of RMIT School of Fashion and Textiles, now design director at Buzz. She’s a maverick spirit, supporter of local designers, and go-to authority on all things fashion. Later in the show we were joined by Alice Edgeley of the fashion label Edgeley, which is the antithesis of everything we’d been talking about. Wish you heard it? Well you can listen back here – enjoy!

Have a little trouble drawing faces? Don’t worry, most people do. The faces on an illustration are the biggest giveaway that it’s not the work of a professional in fact. The main problem I find is that people don’t understand what’s underneath the skin – if you don’t know how the face is built, how can you expect to draw it easily and well? So You Think You Can’t Draw Faces is an intensive full-day workshop that starts with the cranial structure of the head and works its way outwards to facial features and stylised fashion faces. This has been a popular workshop and has an incredible effect on people’s drawings. There are still spots left for this Sunday 26th – more info and bookings here!

As weekends go it was mixed if nothing else: Backwards and forwards from Bendigo to look after my mother who had a nasty skin graft on her poor old nose to remove a BCC; a sold-out Fashion Illustration Bootcamp workshop at The Drawing Salon, and best of all, one of my illustrations on the cover of the Good Weekend magazine which goes out as part of not just The Age in Melbourne, but the Sydney Morning Herald in Sydney – Yah!

The portrait is of controversial coal miner Adani. The art director was looking for an artist who works in charcoal, so a fashion illustrator within The Illustration Room agency was not who he expected to have put forward. But wait – all that life drawing I do for pleasure? Charcoal baby! I just don’t think of it for my commercial work. I will now. This was a really enjoyable artwork to work on – I worked larger at A2 size and mixed charcoal, ink, and gouache paint, and got covered up to my elbows in all of it. The full version sans text is below..