PHANTOM THREAD; experience the impossible couture fantasy
Besides gazing at the senior, slivering Daniel Day-Lewis there are many scenes of beauty to be found in Phantom Thread.
The movie does reinforces many misogynistic stereotypes and adds a bizarre twist but there are moments when Woodstock, the character Day-Lewis portrays throw swatches of cloth up onto his muses’ shoulder, or pins on bended knee – that completely resonate with me. I also cherish the sacrosanct quietude of the early morning to draw (some of which will may be revealed later this year in an exhibition).
Scenes and descriptions of couture craft used to leave me gasping for breath when I was a dreamy country town teenager. As an angry older grunge-rocker uni student I felt conflicted by the disparities between my love of craft and the low standards that I would have to embrace if I took a job as a mainstream fashion design or in a production role. So off I went, door knocking to find every remaining living Italian, Greek and Cypriot between Melbourne and London who wound take me and where would learn elements of the craft that I had studied in dusty tailoring manuals and felt inside my second hand suits and dresses.
During my informal apprenticeships, after a week of pad stitching canvases, embroidering buttons holes and point stitching lapels on a Friday night I would be paid in peanuts, whisky and the odd $50 note but I still use these skills today, so my it was worth it.
Now, after watching this movie (and giving countless lectures and talks around the subject in my professional capacity as a former RMIT sessional lecturer and post grad student, Assistant Curator International Fashion and Textiles NGV, two times Premier’s Design Award Winner as the Founder & Creative Director of MATERIALBYPRODUCT) I thought I would share what comes to mind now, at this point in my life after seeing this latest fashion flick.
To me couture techniques are essentially traditional tailoring techniques, okay, does that simplify that mysterious word a little bit? Keep following… tailoring does not mean a suit, okay? Keep following… tailoring describes a way of marking, cutting, pressing and sewing cloth to get a high quality outcome. When you tailor one off garments according to an individuals measurements that is custom tailoring. Choose a piece of cloth too and there you have a bespoke piece of custom tailoring.
So couture techniques do not have result in gowns, right because essentially it is tailoring and tailoring doesn’t have to result in a suit either. Which is good news for most of you reading because you probably don’t need that many, or any gowns in your life (all that boning and padding really isn’t that comfortable plus you need a small army to strap you in and hook you up). So too, most of us really don’t want to wear suits anymore, if we ever did. All that canvas, plus shoulder pads is great on a man (I love it there) but…
I often describe myself as an old man tailor in a young woman’s body… I know that’s a bit creepy but it makes me laugh at least. I think it sums up my collective experience over the last 35 years of practice which informs what I do today in my House with my lean team of artisans. We create tailored dresses that look and feel nothing like a gowns, actually they feel more like T-Shirts. As well as tailoring separates that can go together to appear suitable but look and feel nothing like a suit even though they are very much custom, bespoke pieces of tailoring or use couture techniques (if you prefer the romance of that word). More importantly to me is that they are beautiful, comfortable, enduring, low maintenance pieces that you will enjoyed everyday and they play nicely with other pieces already in your wardrobe. This has lead my clients to dub them their go-to pieces and live-in luxury meaning, really beautiful pieces comfortable and practical enough to wear frequently and for many years without getting bored of them.
The romantic scenes in Phantom Thread of teams of women working on one piece need to be put into a historical economic perspective to make sense of the big, big gap between that and whats going on in your wardrobe today. Those women were paid pittance in the golden age of couture 1930-1950 and were just slightly better off than being in domestic service. Today to have teams of people working on contemporary couture in the Parisian model means, rightfully a piece will cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s okay though because we have already established that you really don’t need that many or any gowns in your life.
At this point too it’s worth questioning whether the gown you typically wear once ( you know which one I am talking about ) should really be your biggest wardrobe acquisition of your life? Or, I think the even more important question here is, should it be the only thing you get custom fitted for you in your life? Imagine reorganising that weird priority which doesn’t even really resonate with you into getting the clothes you wear everyday custom fitted? Stop and think for a moment (if you haven’t already figured this out) the benefit of redistributing you budget plus your big add on spends into investing in fewer high and I mean really high quality pieces that you wear everyday? Imagine what that would feel like when yo went to get dressed in the morning!
But let me guess there are a few things that hold you back from moving off your prêt-à-porter and ready to wear security blanket like;
⁃ I am afraid it will be out of my league?
⁃ I feel I will be out of my depth!
⁃ What if it doesn’t come out right…?
If you feel this way you are not alone. So if you are still wondering what it could look like and how it could feel the you can get an insight into this experience by replying to this email with I want better quality in my life (because that’s the point) in the subject line.
While you think about whether you should take the leap here are some words exchanged by text between myself and a gorgeous client.
Susan Dimasi: Does it still feel lovely?
Gorgeous Client: I’ve been in transit for 4 hours already in Sydney and yes it still feels lovely!
Gorgeous Client: That’s a miracle.
Susan Dimasi: Oh No… that’s MATERIALBYPRODUCT.
Gorgeous Client: This conversation should be a marketing campaign.
Susan Dimasi: Do you remember when you first came to the atelier? I could have sold you ‘that’ black dress without really trying! You would have had another black dress… albeit the best one you ever had but I would not sell it to you although you appeared very ready to buy it?!
Now that dress is a part of your wedding trousseau in the form of a bodice plus a new and improved style and you have a plan that brings ease and reassurance to your real wardrobe and makes total economic sense. So glad you are loving your first piece too. Can’t wait for you to tell me that you are still wearing it in five years – that’s how invested we are in our results.
Gorgeous Client: I remember it well. Can’t wait either. Over the weekend I cleaned out my wardrobe (again). Know how may sub standard black dresses I found? Five.
Susan Dimasi: Dollar value $800 X 5 = $4000ish
Gorgeous Client: Seeing it written down is quite confronting
Susan Dimasi: Just put 1 great LBD (black, blue, burgundy) in every 6-12 months at $2500, that you will have for five years at least and the numbers will stack up in your favour and so will your style.
*Gorgeous Client works as a Business Consultant for one of the big four, will soon marry (and ‘this’ wardrobe standard comes with her) and when she is not travelling between NZ and Australia she is enjoying Melbourne.
So do you want better quality in your life?
SINCERELY
Susan Dimasi
DIRECTOR / CREATIVE
MATERIALBYPRODUCT