55employees for 55factory
Author Hannah Young
Images Asia Werbel
OOOOhhh who’s up next? Myrza de Mynck’s name is scribbled over the back wall, in gloriously girlish handwriting. And oh it’s like being 8 again. If looks have a smell then this collection looks like the smell of the rubbers everyone collected in the 80’s. Fruity, plastic, pretty and delicious. There is a joyful execution to her collection, scribbles of illustrated frills on a tracksuit top. The squiggles look like the lines of Sasek the 1950’s French illustrator, or even the naive lines in Paddington Bear’s backgrounds.. The hint of a doorframe, a shop window selling sweets, all hinted at by a single unbroken grey line. It’s both nostalgic and new. I am reminded of buying my pink and white shell suit from Long Marston’s market in ‘88. Oh yeah. Layers of texture and appliqué, ruffles and beading, sheer fabric and crochet. A pair of Leopard print legwarmers and I’m in heaven. Maybe I could wear a Myrza leisure suit to my next non-sporting event?
Anne Sofie Madse’s collection reminds me of the natural world scraping at the windowpane. In case we had forgotten it in a candy dream. A bird arrives in the form of a woman. There is mud flecked at the bottom of her hem and on her cuffs. She walked onto the catwalk like a stray from the alleyway. Then a spider’s web spun over a shoulder and down a back. Anne is the first designer today I’ve seen using intricate designs printed on silk, a theme that is repeated again by later designers in the afternoon. Here it is used as the most delicate flesh beneath an exterior of chunky tusk like accessories. The soft underbelly of the crab. Then a woman walks on dressed as if headed to the office, odd, but look a bit closer and the evidence of the creatures we just saw are there dangling from her hand. Her handbag.. It’s as if man in his infinite wisdom saw it, lusted after it’s wildness then caught one and made it into an accessory. Wildcats hold my wallet. Hey don’t we keep doing this? A skull ends the show emblazed on silk and a stockinged huntress with chaps made of parts of the skeleton of that very first bird who fluttered on to stage. Florence and the Machine is the soundscape for Nora Chiu. An International artist for a truly International collection. She took me back to the Himalayas high altitude and then hop skip into Tibet then to Spain to buy some flamenco dolls with neon pink frills. Oh I went to Mexico too and spent sometime with Frida Kahlo looking at the vibrancy of colour on a bright morning. Not satisfied with that she took me to Japan to study the way in which one should wear a kimono, with fur, of course ;) A Star of David, which you would find embroidered onto a skullcap, is placed at the centre of a wide brimmed hat trimmed with florescent pink fur. Every cultural aesthetic is up for grabs then she messes it up and pastes it together as she wishes. A girl with a scrapbook and a prit stick. Oh and then a psychedelic paper doll swans on stage, straight out of the scrapbook. With a fur hat and a parasol with a purple inside. Of course! This is Nora Chiu’s world. Why not?
So then it’s Phoebe English. Up next. Her first solo show. Part way through it I realise why her name rings a bell. I used to babysit for her and her sister. She would perform plays for us. Amazing. I am suitably distracted by this strange and wonderful coincidence of worlds re-colliding, until the somber shapes and wholeness of her collection set there unrelenting gaze on me and I watch. The Lyric (it sounds like Johnny Cash) “I got this feeling I was Dead and there was nothing wrong” repeats and repeats. There is something of the dead in this. Body bags. The black armbands of the grieving. The way black looks different when in different materials, the parade of the funeral party. But the skirts are short and there is a flash of naked back between elasticated leather and felt tabards. A fishing net skirt drags the mermaid ashore to breathe her last. Plastic layers vibrate as if they contain their own life force. Then we turn inside out and we see it all dipped in a world of pink shades. The sweetest harmony of pinkness. Why pink? I think it’s the most frivolous and lovely lickable colour. A tongue. A flash of what’s on the inside. I want to go to a prom in Phoebe’s pink. The little girl who I babysat draws the world from the dead to the living. 
The one piece on Georgina Hardinge’s collection that I soooooo wanted to play with was the mustard felt safari hat. She put it with a jacket of exactly the same material and pair of knitted shorts. I might go Tiger spotting in colonial India in that garb. I however would not shoot the beast. He would see me first anyhow. I saw Katharine Hepburn being incredibly excited about this collection, everything was ready to wear for Katharine. Chiffon sleeves and elegant lengths, the French Riviera would look so hot in Georgina Hardinge. Que sere sere what will be will be played the collection in, and Romance played the collection out. A Romance of Iconic film stars dressed in fluid fabrics and hats with huge brims. Like the way a horizon cuts your view in a clean sweep. I left the Vauxhall building sated and well traveled. Without leaving my seat. What more tomorrow???
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