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
Tumblr- virginiadowzer 
Instagram - Virginia Dowzer

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





Scanlan Theodore 
City of Melbourne 
 

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

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
 
Tumblr- virginiadowzer

Instagram - Virginia Dowzer

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

    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!'".

christineaccessories.com.au

Instagram christineaccessories

Facebook Christine