To celebrate art, fashion, culture and community, we invited the creative Fabric of Auckland and beyond to collaborate on a mural for our Britomart store. Each artwork is now on display at FABRIC and shares the tapestry of our last 20 years.
A story of the people and ideas that have come to define FABRIC. Read on to discover more from our artists, covering everything from inspiration and their most iconic fashion moments.
Photography: Logan Buchanan.
Daniel Ellison wears Buy Music T-Shirt / Bright red by Public Possession, P032 Trousers / Washed Grey by Comme des Garçons HOMME and Chuck Taylor Low / Blue by Comme des Garçons PLAY x Converse.
Q: Please share a little bit about yourself and your work - an artist bio.
Daniel: I live and work in Auckland, and I try to make art when depression is at a tolerable level—-also, I can find time. But I enjoy drawing stupid cartoons all the time.
Artist Bio: Born in Auckland, NZ, and from the islands of Ra’iātea and Huahine, and the people of Ngāi Tahu.
With a family background comprising three generations of journalists, Ellison utilises this vocation in his approach to art making. Contemporary writing technology and image culture form the backdrop of his practice which currently focuses on the role stupidity plays in politics and the media. In a screen-distracted society, the intrinsic differences between language, meaning, information, and truth are blurred. Stupidity has emerged as a subject, by-product, and side effect of online culture. Adopting stupidity as a tenet and aesthetic mood, Ellison reflects on societal issues while retaining the communicative power that art should bear.
Q: What is your most iconic fashion moment?
Daniel: I hung out with Liv Tyler once, and she thought my clothes were cool. Cooler than hers, anyway—she wasn’t wearing any. Her routine requires her to drip dry before getting dressed.
Q: Your must have FABRIC item in your Wishlist?
Everything at Fabric feels must have, but I get at least one hat a year from there, every wallet over the last 15 years, too. At the moment, Public Possession is the one
Q: How would you say fashion and art intertwine - do you think they are important to one another?
Daniel: At this point, the relationship between the two is symbiotic on multiple levels. Fashion and art constantly inform, inspire, and reference each other. Whether it’s conceptually, theoretically, or aesthetically, you’ll see it present so different collections and exhibitions each year.
The ubiquity of collaborations between brands these days seems to have opened a lot of new avenues that’ll hopefully foster new and original opportunities in both worlds.
Q: How do you stay inspired?
Daniel: Read heaps and watch cartoons.
Q: Best advice you’ve ever been given?
Daniel: Don’t be like (can’t name them).
Q: Where are you travelling to first when our borders open?
Daniel: To work—for the rest of my life.
Photography: Logan Buchanan.
Brett Chan wears the Oxford Shirt / Pink by Comme des Garçons SHIRT and Slim Pants / Charcoal by Sage de Cret.
Q: Please share a little bit about yourself and your work - an artist bio.
Bret: "A life well lived is the best art" - Brett Chan
Q: What is your most iconic fashion moment?
Bret: After the 2012 mayan calendar ended, in 2013, I was voted a Sydney fashion icon by Westfield.
I was on all these billboards, bus stops, phone booths and vespas towed poster sized pictures of me all around town. My friends had a lot of fun with it. It was pretty crack up.
Q: Your must have FABRIC item in your Wishlist?
Bret: Some Comme des Garçons stuff for my mum.
Q: How would you say fashion and art intertwine - do you think they are important to one another?
Bret: Does life imitate art or is it art that imitates life?
Q: How do you stay inspired?
Bret: I am Neo in the matrix.
Q: Best advice you’ve ever been given?
Bret: “I'm watching the world burn, so I burn brighter" - Brett Chan.
Photography: Logan Buchanan.
Joel Kefali wears the J013 Jacket / Camel by Comme des Garçons HOMME.
Joel Kefali's daughter Maisie wears the N023 Black Heart Cardigan / Beige by Comme des Garçons PLAY.
Q: Please share a little bit about yourself and your work - an artist bio.
Joel: I’ve been working as a Director, mostly making music videos and TV commercials for the past 15 years..(jeez, old). As well as making album covers and art direction for bands and places like The Sherwood. It’s an exciting and always changing field and I’ve been fortunate to travel around the world, meeting a lot of interesting people and visiting places I wouldn’t have thought to. This is also balanced with the grounded reality of co-parenting three kids. One of which collaborated with me on this artwork.
The artwork is a collaboration between Maisie (my 7 year old daughter) and myself. Maisie started by painting a bouquet of flowers (an appropriate gift for 20 years of fabric). Then we messed around with it from there, both adding our visual signatures to it.
Q: What is your most iconic fashion moment?
Joel: Perhaps, the most recent. When we went into Fabric recently, Maisie pointed out a Comme Cardigan, and was very specific about which colour and style she wanted. Wasn’t interested in a different color in a kid's size. It was nice to see her confidence/style on display.
Q: How would you say fashion and art intertwine? - do you think they are important to one another?
Joel: I think they’re both at their best when they aren't taken or taking themselves too seriously. A bit of irreverence and humour is always good.
Q: How do you stay inspired?
Joel: This has been a challenge in recent times with lockdown and limited travel. But still mostly the usual ways. Reading, looking, walking. Giving yourself space and time and quiet for things to unravel and appear. Sometimes it is not magic, it’s the daily practice of working on what you do.
Q: Where are you travelling to first when our borders open?
Joel: LA, I left there in a hurry in March 2020, thinking I was only leaving for a month. So there are friends, colleagues and a neighbourhood I miss and want to visit. Then getting lost in Tokyo.
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Photography: Logan Buchanan. Oliver Green wears the Overshirt 10704 / Black by Stone Island and the Indio Sunglasses / Black by Anine Bing. |
Q: Please share a little about yourself and your work - artist bio. Oliver: My name is Oliver Green. I’m a writer and creative director. I’ve worked in most facets of commercial creativity from advertising to film direction. I make a zine called NEVERLAND which appears sporadically in print but has a regular presence on Instagram. I work with local, and international artists and writers and corral talent. We are moving into the collaboration space and have some interesting brands lined up to co create with. Stay tuned for an expanded media offering - I’m doing a podcast. I have a face for podcasting.
Q: What is your most iconic fashion moment? Oliver: I once went to Tokyo as a young man - 20 years ago. I immediately headed to A Bathing Ape and bought as much as I could.Just struck by the brand from the packaging to store experience. They displayed t-shirts in plexiglass for instance. It was the first example of what felt like buying souvenirs from a brand and not clothing made by a brand. I also went upstairs to Nowhere studio - where I was looked over, up and down and told down the nose of the people who worked there that “Nothing would fit me.” Ha!
Q: Your must have FABRIC item in your Wishlist? Oliver: I want to roll around in head-2-toe Stone Island. I lived in London for a decade and never bought any SI. I kick myself now. They are all ‘pieces’ that I would end up handing on to my son.
Q: How would you say fashion and art intertwine? - do you think they are important to one another? Oliver: They aren’t separate and so intertwining isn’t the correct description. They are one in the same. My favourite ever fashion moment was Alexander McQueen Spring Summer 1999 where Shalom Harlow was painted black and yellow by robotic arms. It’s hands down the most beautiful moment in fashion and powered by the same high concept meets poetic action as art.
Q: How do you stay inspired? Oliver: Fear of death.
Q: Best advice you’ve ever been given? Oliver: How about the most recent? Start a podcast.
Q: Where are you travelling to first when our borders open? Oliver: Coromandel. |
Photography: Logan Buchanan.
Michael Whittaker wears the T100 Red Heart Outline T-Shirt / White by Comme des Garçons PLAY, Indigo Sunglasses by Anine Bing and Slim Pants / Black by Sage de Cret.
Q: Please share a little bit about yourself and your work - an artist bio.
Michael: I am a writer currently completing my PhD in English at the University of Auckland. The focus of my doctorate is the Aotearoa poet Michele Leggott. My interest in the poetics of difference—in particular, at the moment, the poetics of disability as this relates to Leggott’s blind/low vision poetry, as informed by feminist approaches—spills over into own writing practice.
I’ve also been a model for brands like Dior, Balenciaga, Raf Simons, Thom Browne, Comme des Garçons, to namedrop a couple.
Q: What is your most iconic fashion moment?
Michael: A memorable fashion experience that bears some relevance to Fabric was my time with Comme des Garçons and Rei Kawakubo. The line to cast for Comme in Place Vendôme is always one of the longest of Paris Fashion Week. I was going to give It a miss, but Dayne (from Zambesi) encouraged me—pretty strictly, if I recall—to go. When I finally got to the front of the queue (which wasn’t so bad, after all, as I’d spent the time talking with my friend, Andreja Pejic), the clothes fit well, and Rei took to me. I opened and closed their shows in Paris for a while, before heading to Tokyo, where, each morning, I worked with Rei, her hilarious sister, and an atelier in their austere Aoyama compound. Noone else was allowed to see what they/we were up to. Eventually, when the collection was finished, all of the company employees formed this long gauntlet and I walked up and down for over an hour wearing each new piece. It was special to be a part of that process.
Q: Your must have FABRIC item in your Wishlist?
Michael: Well, I only wear Comme’s Wonderwood fragrance (first introduced and gifted to me by my inimitable friend, Margaret Rogers), so I make sure to never be out of that. It’s an evocative scent, and it might just be with me for life.
Q: How would you say fashion and art intertwine? - do you think they are important to one another?
Michael: As Andrew Bolton of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (and a lovely guy, and Thom Browne’s partner) has made clear at the Costume Institute, fashion and art should not be considered apart. Tastes may vary, but I think we all appreciate the beauty of talent translated and realised by effort.
Q: How do you stay inspired?
Michael: I walk, listen to books, read, watch films, swim, discuss things with myself and others.
Q: Best advice you’ve ever been given?
Michael: Don’t listen to the Inner Bitch voice that lurks inside yourself—or recognise it as such, and do the opposite of what that bastard implores.
Q: Where are you travelling to first when our borders open?
Michael: To visit my younger brother, Stephen Whittaker, who is an artist who lives in Paris. He might be moving to Barcelona though, so maybe there, too. And I’d like to see Lisbon. And my girlfriend is from the Netherlands, where I have never been, so there, too… And so it begins…
