LAST LOOKS - ELLERY
Few designers wait until being asked by Vogue how to credit a garment to settle on a name for their clothing line. “I made these tights for a fashion show I styled and the fashion editor at Vogue Australia requested them for a shoot,” says Kym Ellery, who at the time was part of the core creative team at Russh magazine. “They asked for a credit and I said, ‘Call it Ellery.’ After that, I figured, I pretty much have a label now.”
Though the final leap towards launching her line was quite serendipitous, Ellery had known for years that she wanted to be a designer and for even longer that she was obsessed with fashion. Even as a child, her attraction to clothes was visceral. “I was a quiet child, until the day my mom and I went shopping and there was this white skirt that had red polka dots,” she says. Despite her immediate attraction to the garment, her mom said no—as mothers sometimes do—and Ellery reacted as any passionate child would. “I burst into tears and threw my body on the floor.”
Ellery’s mother may have denied her the skirt, but she also provided her daughter with many of the tools that would one day make her label a success. She studied fine art with a focus on textiles while raising Ellery in Karratha, a small town in Western Australia, which allowed the budding designer to quietly acquire an education in fabrics. Later the family moved to Perth, where Ellery’s mother finished her studies and became an art teacher. “I was always observing what she was doing and gaining an understanding of the processes she would put fabrics through,” Ellery says.
This charming origin story explains the designer’s emphasis on fabrics and, specifically, how fabric selection (or in many cases creation) translates into structure. In Ellery’s world, garments defy the very laws of physics. Blouses float around the torso as if weightless, and pants give way to oversized bells that hold their shape as if by sorcery. “My design assistant and I will sit in our fabric appointments and look for something that naturally has a crunch to it,” Ellery says. There is magic in the construction as well. “We’re always figuring out ways to help the pieces on their architectural journey—to keep them standing upright.”
Spring 2014 marked the first time the Sydney-based label showed in Paris, and the principles that define Ellery were unapologetically exaggerated. The flares were bigger, as were the belled sleeves. It was Paris, after all—not the time for subtlety. Ellery also called upon Los Angeles–based artist Ben Baretto, who creates tapestries from abseiling cord and bricklayers’ line, to create panels she then incorporated into the garments.
The Ellery æsthetic has earned many fans, not least among them Vogue Australia, which has continued to support the local designer since prominently featuring her stockings. Rihanna and Cate Blanchett have been known to wear her creations, and top models like Abbey Lee Kershaw and Hannah Holman are often popping by the showroom or sending emphatic e-mails requesting pieces—the garments’ proportions work particularly well on their lithe limbs. But perhaps the line’s success is unsurprising. After all, Ellery is a woman who tends to get what she wants. Even the polka-dot skirt eventually wound up in her clutches. “I wore it to death,” she says.
For more information, please visit ElleryLand.com.
Styling by Tony Irvine. Makeup by Karan Franjola at Marek & Associates. Hair by Diego Da Silva at Tim Howard Management. Model: Zlata at IMG. Manicure by Ami Vega at Marek & Associates. Photographer’s assistants: Henry Lopez and Darren Hall. Stylist’s assistant: Susan Walsh. Hairstylist’s assistant: Ayae Yamamoto. Digital technician: Zach Ramey. Retouching by Norkin Digital Art.
Allyson Shiffman is a pseudo-intellectual writer who lives and works in New York. She frequently contributes to Interview, BULLETT, EXIT and The Last Magazine.
