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ADRIAN LEWIS

BROKEN BEER BOTTLES & TIARAS . Melbourne, Australia, December 2014.

Have you ever held an emerald worth more than your home, or a looked into a ruby that has infinite depth but is the size of your little finger nail, breathtaking and forever memorable and just a part of the wonderful experience that it was to 'spend time' with Adrian Lewis.

This post has been waiting in my vault, why, I am unsure, but I feel now it's time is ripe, please enjoy.

..True story but I used to actually collect broken beer bottles in the street and broken glass and I used to create tiaras [huh] and jewellery for my mother out of 'cause they were like emeralds and diamonds to me... so poor thing she would have to go to these dinner parties with this tiara or [you know] an earring on which was basically cardboard with glitter and broken bits of beer bottle. Of course she would leave the house with them on but she would always put them in the glove box so I thought she was going to the party with them, an when she'd come home she'd have them on [huh]still, but years later she told me.. She didn't wear them to the party..


  .. Now the reason why we came to Australia was [um] my mother came out for a holiday, my uncle lived in Melbourne.. I was at boarding school in England and my mother didn't tell us, she's left and gone to Australia and it was the end of term and she came to pick me up and she had a sun tan which was unheard of...but what she'd done was she'd actually written all these post cards and gotten a girlfriend to send them to us on a weekly basis from London supposedly like 'Buckingham Palace', 'Tower of London'..where she wrote 'having a lovely time, Mummy'.. but she was in Australia falling in love with my 'to be' step father..

..You see my step father was a member of the Melbourne Club, and [um] every Oaks Day they'd have this drinks party and I used to have to go under duress after the races..and I arrive there one afternoon a bit late and my mother and step father were there [and um]I said to my mother 'what are you wearing' because in a crowd she was hard to find..She'd gone and bought this coat from 'Armani', looked like, I don't know, feathers, white feathers 'puff really' I guess you'd call it..Anyway I get to the Melbourne Club and here's me wondering through this sea of cold Laura Ashley dresses and little strings of pearls and diamonte brooches and trying to find this woman in this [huh] white feathered jacket..Anyway it took me about half an hour and then I started to look a bit closer at some of these men, and, there were bits of white feather and fluff on the backs of their suits and on their shoulders, and I'd sort of go past another chap and there would be another feather and [sort of] fluff, I started to work out that if I followed all these men and their suits and its a true story, low and behold there's a parting of these people and there was this 'apparition' in white feathers sort of 'swans' down-fluff, pink lips and blonde hair, and of course I found her and this was my mother..

..So, the lusciousness in her and what I grew up in drove me in another direction that is much more abstract, and far more stylised and sort of, I guess, not primitive but the lines are stronger and I guess more masculine in a way [um] but neutral and calm ..


                                                   
                                           
                                                                 
  ..She [Mother] gave me a great appreciation of women and the strength in women..because my mother was a strong woman [um] but I think that also understanding the softness and the femininity attached to it as well..

..My father was in England at the time and would give my sister and I some money to go back to England on holiday and my sister went back and I thought I would start my own business with the money and I would be back in six months, it was about ten years later I think that I got to go back [ha]..the great thing was, I started my own business..

..Australia is extremely relaxed and casual in its lifestyle, which is the only downside of the industry because you don't really need jewellery in Australia, it's not a craft that's really appreciated for what it is as opposed to Europe or America or other countries where it's a big part of every day life and it's a part of your status and it's a part of dowry's and inheritance and all that sort of thing..

..There's some funny stories too where the husband's run off and bought an anniversary present and the poor wife's had it sitting on the knicker drawer for seven years because it was so harendous that she's never worn it at all and she's had to wait until he's forgotten about it before she can bring it in and have it re modelled..

..I love pears because they are out of the oyster how they are, they are not cut and shaped by man, you know..

..And using modest things with extremely valuable things so you put wood with emerald, and you put pearls with copper and you're playing with your mind but you're also playing with, it's like a tease, because not everything has to be highly precious..the lovely thing is to give people surprises..turn it around to the back it should be just as beautiful as the front..the stuff you cant see but you know it's there..
 
On this hot evening back in December 2014 it felt like we were in a sanctuary, a sanctuary of simplicity, precision and the greatest appreciation for style, beauty, craft and imagination.

There is so much beauty in simplicity, it does not tell you how to think or act, to me great simplicity has a full stop and also a comma.

Thank you Adrian Lewis.



Contributing Visual Director 
Virginia Dowzer
virginiadowzer.com

S!X - DENISE SPRYNSKYJ and PETER BOYD

LA CHAMBRE DE BONNE. Melbourne, Australia, December 2014.

On a very hot summers day back in December 2014 we made our way to S!X at 'La Chambre de Bonne' in Melbourne for one of the funniest shoots I have been on in a long time. 

Denise Sprynskyj and Peter Boyd formed the label S!X in 1994 'as a response to the local Australian fashion industry's lack of originality, over consumption and over production'. 

'S!X  combines traditional tailoring, dyeing and fabric manipulation techniques with the practices of recycling and deconstruction'. 

This piece has been a long time coming, please enjoy!

..At the end of the day maybe we're like twins, maybe we're like brother and sister, maybe we're inseparable, maybe we just see the same thing. [DS]


..London Fashion Week, that's when we worked for Owen Gaster as interns..oh that was a great experience. Remember at the time it was Owen Gaster, Hussein Chalayan, Alexander McQueen.. they were the people to watch. They gave us a needle and thread and said 'right, do the punch stitch'.. 'I'm saying to Peter 'what's the punch stitch?'[DS]

..'Owen Gaster [like] five minutes before the show threw us a dress and said ''right, cut the hem on that!'..we just cut it and they said "quick, quick, it's gotta go out on the runway!"[DS]

..'The last show was Alexander McQueen in the church, we had no tickets, it was pouring down with rain. We get there, it's in Spitalfields..
.. it was the most spectacular thing we had ever seen, Isabella Blow was there, Philip Treacy, the way the show was staged..the who's who of all the models'.[DS]

.. 'I guess what London taught us was, that's the energy, those designers just got that stuff up on the catwalk, whatever way, whatever method, it was all valid. Where [as] Milan, you don't show in Milan unless you've got a big infrastructure behind you, do it a certain way...Paris, everyone gets a go, that's why we love Paris'. [PB]

                                           
                                                                 
  .. 'Well, we've discussed, "why do we use french words when we both can't speak french".. our french is ap-pauling, um, so why do we do that?'.. [PB]

..'We know that when French is translated into English sometimes it doesn't translate "correctly". So it's about the ambiguity for us, the way of being evasive or ambiguous- you know what's one of our favorite labels 'Comme des Garcons' ..what does that mean exactly?I mean it's full of double entendre and paradoxes..like the boys' [PB]

 ..'I wouldn't buy clothing in the particular space we've constructed..we call it 'La Chambre de Bonne' ..translates into "a maids room", it is like your bedroom, it is like a wardrobe for you to get changed, put things on. You know, we come in, have a look, take it in, add something to it, you know but I guess you've gotta seek us out'. [PB]

..'With our PHD, we're looking at what it is we do and how we design, what sort of mental space or head space do we have to get in to to design the way we do'.[DS]

..'We need to surround ourselves with this idea of Paris..We transcend where we are and we surround ourselves or immerse ourselves in the idea of the imagined space or the Parisian space in order to be able to design'..[DS]

 ..' I just feel what has bought Peter and I together is that we've jumped so many fences, snuck in back stage to so many shows overseas over the years.. and when I think of the Jean Paul Gautier experience [we climbed a fence for that], and I said to Peter 'I'm never going to get over the fence.. I just went up and over... we got to the front door, there's Stella Tennant in front of me..that was just wonderful'.[DS]


S!X are the first practicing commercial design duo to complete a PhD in Australia on their practice and its methodology, they completed this in February 2016.

S!X 


Contributing Visual Director
Virginia Dowzer
virginiadowzer.com

KIRSTEN ALBRECHT

THE COLOUR GREEN.  Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, December 2014.

Green.. the colour of life, renewal, nature, and energy, of growth, harmony,
freshness, safety, fertility, and environment.

"Green is the grass and the watermelon skin, fourth colour in the rainbow, the emeralds in a ring."
[Extract from the poem GREEN by James Hörner]



Kirsten Albrecht is the managing director of Kozminsky, a learned scholar of psychotherapy, a mother to four, a grand-mother to two.
Her life experience, her expertise in reading people is both inspiring to watch and also to partake in. The depth of her appreciation of ‘substance’ is infectious and her love for 'the colour green’ is a perfect match for her grain.

TIME WITH JOAN was fortunate to witness the beauty of the immense collection of Kokeshi on parade at Kirsten's home, some 1000 in total, this home a nest for much beauty and abundance. The idea of looking from outside-in to Kirsten paralleled with her ‘store life’ at Kozminsky. The soundtrack of The Last Emperor  filled the atmosphere with serenity and riches, and above us slept a tawny frogmouth owl, oblivious to the goings on.

                                               

 I don’t feel like I’m very zen inside me, I feel like I’m not a zen person, I’m glad that I look that way sometimes.

We need to be hit in the face with a piece of two b' four to learn things, we don’t learn them easily we learn them because something happens that changes us and I think that that’s how my life has been, that I’ve learnt as I’ve grown. But I think probably because I did embark on a self discovery journey quite a few years ago through psychotherapy I was able to get a fairly good understanding of who I am, including all my neuroses.

I hadn’t done a lot of things I wanted to do when I first could have done them, so  I thought I really want to go back and do Psychology …the reason I did it was really because I was hit by a piece of two b’ four .. and I was off work for a year and did a lot of thinking in that time and realised that things that really matter to me were people [um], and that’s been interesting with working with jewellery because jewellery and people for me are inextricably linked and the relationship that I create with with people and jewellery are inextricably linked.. I don’t [sort of] see them as separate .. I feel like my integrity and truthfulness with my client whether it be phsyco-theroputic  clients or jewellery purchases is the same, it’s congruent, so I feel like I’ve got congruence. And, I feel like sometimes in life that’s one of the hard things to have, to be congruent in life between how you’d like people to see you and what’s actually going on inside you.



I thought about Kokeshi as I was sorting them and putting them out today, and I think that at some level the Kokeshis'  work for me as a response to what I would describe as not a really happy childhood. I think there’s a lot of girls in there that make up or things I feel I didn’t have as a child. I think I have had more of a childhood collecting those than I did as a child.

My father had a huge decorator in him, [so] when we were growing up we lived in Mentone which was just a little seaside town, and Dad made a ‘mini Europe' in the beachside town Mentone…. Other people were eating chops for breakfast or lunch and I was having sauerkraut and these things I couldn’t pronounce, and I was embarrassed by that. Very embarrassed that I wasn’t the normal girl.

My father believed there were three kinds of opportunity for his four children; Kozminsky, Kozminsky (and) Kozminsky and all of us were given the same three options… I’ve been absolutely adamant that none of my children join the business.

I worked in the business from the time I could barely poke my head over the counter, I must have been an absolutely precocious monster when I look back on it, but I think that training was good because I learnt a lot about what we called in those days “the trade”, we don’t call it the trade any more because it’s a business now… We’re not all designed to be lawyers and doctors, there’s a billion other things we can be and I think that a society that allows people to use their hands constructively and in beautiful ways is a society that’s actually quite sophisticated, and I don’t see Australia as necessarily very sophisticated, yet.


I think I associate a lot with my German Grandmother, and my German Grandmother during World War II made hats to keep my father and his sister alive… I really respected that drive in a woman and I feel that women are vastly underrated  in terms of capacity, strength, wisdom. The reason that it’s a mans world is that men could not afford for it to be a woman’s world, because women have so much capacity it’s scary.


I thought about Kokeshi as I was sorting them and putting them out today, and I think that at some level the Kokeshis'  work for me as a response to what I would describe as not a really happy childhood. I think there’s a lot of girls in there that make up or things I feel I didn’t have as a child. I think I have had more of a childhood collecting those than I did as a child.

And when I was moving my Kokeshi before I knew every Kokeshi.. so (the) only ones that I give away are ones that aren’t embroiled with some kind of spirit.
 

I love collage…I don’t know what it says about me but I love collage.

Kirsten Albrecht
kozminsky.com
Facebook/KozminskyMelbourne
Instagram Kozminsky

Contributing Visual Director
Virginia Dowzer
virginiadowzer@bigpond.com 
Tumblr- virginiadowzer
Instagram - Virginia Dowzer


VIRGINIA DOWZER

WALKABOUT. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia December 2014.


I am Virginia Dowzer and I am a stylist. 
I’ve dedicated my entire working lifetime to creatively exploring the potentials of visual communication, primarily in fashion but also working on projects, with fashion-related themes. 
It is crucial to me that my work has a sense of wonderment and interest because of its complexities and balance - I want it to tell a story.
I don’t think that you should ever underestimate how much you can feed the mind visually and what richness that can bring … 
Because most of all what I do and what I try to do is to create beauty. 
Extract from the biography of Virginia Dowzer


                                           




TIME WITH JOAN is really excited to welcome Contributing Visual Director Virginia Dowzer, whom spends much of her time in her car.. a moving observatory window on life and her choice location for TIME WITH JOAN. 

Virginia Dowzer and I have worked together for ten years on projects that maintain their longevity through the constant theme of 'beauty'. BEAUTY.. A combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or form that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight. [Oxford Dictionary]

In occupying the better part of a day touring Melbourne making stops for 'drop off's' and garment changes, there was a lot of laughter and wonderful insight into the full gamut of drivers behind Virginia's personal theories on interest, inspiration, passion and the wonderment of beauty.

It is the 'gamut' that makes Virginia's work so full and exciting. The layers of complexity built and born from nature and nurture give Virginia's creativity it's third dimension.

'Whenever we said we were bored, our mother said, "Well go MAD and tear paper".. and literally we did!.. stacks of newspaper and we would tear it all up and make cubby houses in the hallway with it.'




'I do feel very deeply about visual communication and how people communicate visually. Every day I see [you know] keep my eyes open for things, new things.. people on the street, people walking along, the way that they present themselves...it's inspiring...quite often it's the people that don't try very hard that are the most inspirational to me.'

'My mother was very strict, she was very English. She was very strict in terms of [um] what we were allowed to engage with when we were young.. so it was very much growing up in the 70's in a, I guess you would call it a "bohemian" environment really'.




'The most beautiful things that I have thought, that have taken my breath away are really in nature, it isn't really man made things at all. [And] I do think things are really beautiful that man has made, I can see the work that goes into them and things do take my breath away, but nature really takes my breath away.. it's unbelievable what happens in nature.. un-believable.'

'I have so many theories about different things, and usually my theories... usually they are right [and] but I observe lots of things that a lot of people don't and I guess that I do think a lot about those things.'

'I have a thing when I go to the ballet, that the ballerinas are all lined up and they move in unison and they are in exactly the same timing.. I will still burst into tears.. because to me it's such perfection, split second timing,  in order for that to happen it takes such huge amounts of work and so when I look at that and when that happens on stage, that's something that will make me incredibly emotional.. because I guess, of the back end of how you actually achieve that.'




'When I lay out my table I always [ah] make sure that it looks what I call "Haptic". When something is "Haptic" you want to touch it and it is so covetable that you almost have to put your hands on it.. I used to get angry when people put their hands on it but now I realise, actually it's something people can't help doing...'

 'I am genuinely interested in [I guess] the science of life.'



Virginia Dowzer 
virginiadowzer@bigpond.com
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Instagram - Virginia Dowzer

With thanks to
Adrian Lewis Jewellery 
Audi Australia 
Christine Accessories  
Cose Ipanema  
Kozminsky  
Mark Douglass Design 





Scanlan Theodore 
City of Melbourne 
 

PHILIP BOON and SONIA AUDINO

BLUE. Mary Lipshut's ML Vintage collection, Melbourne, Australia November 2014.



'Where we are sitting now is my friend Mary Lipshuts' showroom, I suppose where I met her a few years ago and I was asked to do an exhibition for her and we became firm and fast friends. I think she was in her early eighties at that time and I was, oh, I won't say.' Philip Boon[PB]

Fashion Stylist and Creative Director Philip Boon and Fashion Director Sonia Audino are long term friends who have a great passion for the fashion, art, design, architecture of the 1970's.

[The late] Mary Lipshut was a fashion Doyenne who through the repercussion of political decisions accumulated a divine collection of what is now 'unworn' vintage fashion. Philip Boon and Sonia Audino have inherited responsibility of the ML Vintage collection and through their love of vintage plan to take it to the world.

 [In Marys words] 'I had a fashion imports business and had exclusivity over the import of Courréges and Missoni in Australia. But in the early 1970's the French tested their first nuclear bombs in the Pacific, and Australia black-banned all french products for two years.
The fashion changed very quickly and two years later, by the time I could sell my shipment - a shipment that was meant to be for the whole of Australia - the fashion was too far behind!'
At the advice of famed Italian fashion journalist Anna Piaggi,  Lipshut held on to her massive collection of two year old Courréges.

'She had great foresight , in 1973 she said 'Pack it away, because all over the world museums are going to want to open fashion galleries and vintage fashion will come into it's own'.
Mary added to this initial collection over the following decades buying from some of the worlds most famed designers which lead her to open a vintage showroom in the late 1990's that became ML Vintage.

Sonia Audino [SA] 'I guess working with this collection a driver for me is actually being able to work with a piece of fashion history, and that's very exciting. And I think also, [I guess] being Australian and I [I guess] having my roots on Perth, you don't actually get to see something like this and I think probably 'globally'  you don't really get to see a collection like Mary's.' 






'We both have a love of Vintage.. it's the perfect partnership, both have a massive love of the 1970's, all things design. We have a very clear vision of where we'd like to see the collection, we're very very proud of it, to carry on Mary's legacy' [SA]






'I always loved vintage,  I wore vintage myself for many years. I used to back when I was a clothing designer just wear vintage suits [you know] nine 'til five all the time, and basically went on to really look into and research vintage and that's what lead me to Mary I suppose'. Philip Boon [PB]

In the foyer of the ML Vintage collection there is a breath taking collection of framed photographs and newspaper cuttings a 'fame wall' that encapsulates Mary Lipshuts unrivalled passion and life in fashion, her friends and accomplices. Messages and photographs from Gianni Versace, Anna Piaggi and Missoni - Rosita and Octavio. Frank Sinatra, Danni Minogue, Geoffrey Rush, to see this is fascinating to anyone.

The excitement that Philip and Sonia have for the ML Vintage collection is inspiring and infectious. To see two people surrounded by this particular treasure trove is akin to making a wish and it actually happening. To see vintage unworn from bathing suits to dresses and accessories was overwhelming.

'When I first met Sonia she was driving around in her Mum and Dads 1960's Mercedes - what    colour?' PB    
'It was Baby Blue' SA 
'Mmmm, blue, not pale blue' PB
'Baby Blue.. she was lovely' SA
Philip Boon & Sonia Audino
pbsavintage@gmail.com

Contributing Visual Director
Virginia Dowzer

virginiadowzer@bigpond.com 
Tumblr- virginiadowzer
Instagram - Virginia Dowzer

CHRISTIAN WAGSTAFF

BORN FREE. Taggerty, Central Victoria, Australia September 2014






"This is the remnants of the greatest tree I've ever seen in my life. The Oak tree was bigger than the farmhouse itself, [and] we used to call it "The Faraway tree".
 
"It was one of the most extraordinary trees to climb as a child, it had the biggest branches and the hugest trunk..[and, ah] there was probably three, four, five or six of us that used to climb it at any one time...and we used to play all the different characters from The Magic Faraway Tree book, 'Moon Face', 'Mrs Pops' ... all those mad characters from Enid Blyton..'






"[But] it's really quite emotional coming back to this place, [um] because my father sold it ten years ago, and ah, I'd heard that the tree had collapsed, so it's been quite amazing to come back...to Taggerty.."








Christian Wagstaff is a Melbourne based Creative Director who's incredible work spans that of art projects, film and television, live theatre, special events, attractions and interior design projects. 

When we invited Christian to spend TIME WITH JOAN he chose the magical remains of the old Oak tree at Taggerty House "The Farm" (his childhood getaway) as the backdrop for our insight into what shaped his own creativity. 

Christian Wagstaff is the son of acclaimed Director of Photography Keith Wagstaff (Man from Snowy River, Wild Horses, The Anzacs) Keith "Waggers" Wagstaff started his career in the lab of the family owned business Cineservice in 1953.

During our shoot (on this very windy day in Taggerty) there was a unique presence of love of  family, respect, and inherent creativity. Opportunity to play freely in these extremely historic surroundings bare testament to creative growth, story telling, make believe and the purity and good fortune of being 'Born Free'. 

 "We were allowed to as kids, roam around the house and do whatever we wanted [pretty much].. when my parents bought the property I remember my step mother saying when they came and viewed the house the corridors of the house were so wide and beautiful old timber structures, there was cattle actually walking through the house...it had been vacated for a couple of decades.."

"We were allowed to paint rooms. At one stage there was a room where we had a beautiful box window at the back of it that overlooked [actually] the Oak tree in the distance. We set it up as a little theatre using old bedspreads a and rickety old furniture... we'd paint the rooms and paint the scenes and hang up drapes and do little shows for our parents."



 
"Crown announced that they were opening and were going to have theatres and entertainment.. I remember thinking I must get a job there, I have to... (at the interview) I had a beautiful Top hat made that was absolute perfection... and a beautiful set of tails, most beautiful cherry red wool fabric, like the Ring Master outfit Marlene Dietrich wore... they said "have you made this?" I said "no", but I directed someone to make this, that's why they are so beautiful... and I got the job."





"Just keep walking... they're more scared of us than we are of them" (Virginia Dowzer)


"Actually, I'm scared" (Bronwyn Kidd)

Around fifteen young (so they said) Black Angus surrounded us from the front, and another fifteen from the back, like a wave in the ocean that seems so much bigger than you.... were we going to survive this trip to Taggerty?

... Thankfully, Virginia was right...' just keep walking'. 



Christian Wagstaff

facebook.com/creativeproductionservices

youtube.com/user/CPS011

creativeproductionservices.com.au

Contributing Visual Director

Virginia Dowzer

virginiadowzer@bigpond.com
 
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Instagram - Virginia Dowzer

GAVIN BROWN and PETER CURNOW

ELEVEN and TWELVE.  St Kilda,  Melbourne Australia, August 2014




"Isolation made us more unique, maybe. Sort of going down a wild journey of our own, trying to do the most mad prints I could. It's just a moment in time, what you could get away with and pushing the boundaries, there was an audience and people were prepared to go with the journey. It's so for the masses now, it wasn't mainstream. It's so for the masses now...who wants that?, the masses, ah..great... NOT interested in the masses.." Gavin Brown [GB]




"That was that point in time in time in Melbourne though, there was just so much fabulous[ness].. you know when cities hit that critical mass for a couple of years, and you know the fashion Eighty five and Eighty four and all those things... their was a hell of a lot going on in Melbourne". Peter Curnow 

Artist Gavin Brown and partner Peter Curnow [Fashion and Textile production] live uniquely in neighbouring St Kilda Art Deco apartments [the compound], numbers ELEVEN and TWELVE. 

Their relationship spans 15 years and their mirrored involvement in the advances of fashion, art and interiors has witnessed a transition from Melbourne's grass roots creativity of the 1980's to mass production of the same today. 

The oasis in which they live is a reflection of their values, appreciation of beauty even dark or ugly , of their creativity, history and passion. 

Gavin Brown's Art has ranged from printmaking to fashion to performance and his now paintings encomopass all.

Peter Curnow,  has spent a vast amount of time in Fashion and Textile production. He has specialised in Screen Printing both in Australia and the UK where he worked with famed Textile Designer Celia Birtwell. 


"Everybody wanted you to be a trend follower and not a 'trend setter'. I'm only interested in being a trend setter". GB

"..have you seen what's out there??." GB

"It's the same intent, everything I do has to have the same intent, performing or interior or anything it's gotta have the same intent.. it's for you, number one, and you've gotta live with yourself... [so] it's gotta have your authentic hand to everything you do". GB

"I studied Fine Art Painting and Print Making and started printing on fabric because I could not get paper big enough". GB


Gavin Brown
Nic-Nak Castle


Contributing Visual Director
Virginia Dowzer

virginiadowzer@bigpond.com
Tumblr- virginiadowzer

Instagram - Virginia Dowzer





CHRISTINE BARRO and JANE-ANN DAVOREN

    In bed with Philip Treacy.  Flinders Lane,  Melbourne Australia June 2014




"Love the shock of the new, that's what I say. It's about the hunt and the catch.... And then, always when I come back the thing that shocked me the most is the thing I can't stop talking about. Because it's so exciting when people take things beyond our imagination. And I always feel like when I am traveling I am on the outside of the planet looking down at all of these mad people running around this planet making more and more beautiful things that we don't need, but they're so beautiful we must have them, and... it [has] got to be pretty beautiful otherwise why are we doing it?"








"And then Philip of course blows me away, because, you see him there and he [has] got these flowers in his atelier, he's being inspired by botanic things, and he watches that thing growing. It could be quite sadly growing and unhealthy, but he's observing that shape and he always invents another thing. He has orchids growing, they're looking a bit sad but it's in the reality of that botanic 'thing' happening, that he gets ideas as a form."

 


"We didn't realize until our grandmother's funeral that she was the local 'town couturier'. We thought all these ladies we would visit were her friends, but they used to be her staff... we grew up in Sydney and our parents would put us on a train at central station with the shoebox packed with the sandwiches, tied with string..." Christine Barro


"It was the perfect picture of a hard earned race day, just getting that tiny little cat nap....I love it, don't you love it."  Virginia Dowzer


Christine Barro and sister, Jane-ann Davoren, have been ambassadors of 'the new' for over 40 years. Their dedication to supporting supreme design in fashion is unwavering, inspiring and a gift to Melbournians. As is Christine of Flinders Lane. 

The evening of Thursday 26th June 2014 Christine and Jane-anne closed the doors of Christine and opened the doors of Christine's city dwelling for  TIME WITH JOAN. 

Virginia Dowzer had previously been at a party at Christine's and witnessed fortuitously the scene above, minus Philip Treacy. 

Our excitement over the first  TIME WITH JOAN started with a phone call to Christine and Jane Ann introducing the idea. Nothing had been said about what Virginia had witnessed or our ideal portrait concept for Christine and Jane Ann but as conversation progressed with Christine  serrendipidy came to play.

"Philip's Spring Summer 2014 collection is on the bed [in the apartment],"  said Christine, "we could do it there, ' In bed with Philip Treacy!'".


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