Glamour In Greenery
"The pieces for the catwalk are very big, and not necessarily hats that sit on the head either. They’re more ‘millinery pieces’ that you put around the body."
Milliner Richard Nylon is famous for his imaginative designs and has been creating hats, fascinators and bridal headwear in Melbourne since the 1980s. Now, as part of Melbourne Spring Fashion Week 2013, Nylon will present a catwalk show to sate the sartorial urges of fashion plates and botanists alike. “The whole range is based on plant life,” tells Nylon. It all began when his sister gave him a book called Green Universe, by Professor Stephen Blackmore, which details plant life through microscopic images of flora at the cellular level. “Most organic life, when it is pulled right down to the cellular level, is all little spikey bits and circles-within-circles, and is incredibly detailed,” Nylon explains. “What I'm doing is exploding it to the macro-scale, like the photographs [in Green Universe] do. The pieces for the catwalk are very big, and not necessarily hats that sit on the head either. They're more 'millinery pieces' that you put around the body.”
Nylon is certainly no stranger to working with close detail. Intricate beading, innovative uses of plastic wire and an ability to intuit the best application of millinery fabrics have earned him the prestigious place as MFSW's only catwalk-exhibiting milliner. It is his high-concept creative vision that made him an ideal cameo performer in Folie à Deux's new short, Reflections, which will premiere this Friday at MSFW. The film features model and MTV VJ Kate Peck traipsing through the streets of Melbourne, interrupting all manner of fashion goings-on, and continues Fashion Week's love affair with the cinema. “It's a very clever, self-referential film,” says Lord Mayor Richard Doyle. “What it shows you, of course, is that fashion and creativity are an integral part of the canvas of Melbourne.” In Reflections, Richard Nylon appears alongside such local celebrities as Jenny Bannister, Philip Boon and, Nylon's long-time friend and collaborator, Gwendolynne Burkin. “It was actually a lot of fun,” Nylon says of the shoot. “We got to drink champagne and eat a lot of cake.” The scene depicts a glamorous dinner party with a sumptuous colour palette of crimson and black. A fitting setting for Nylon's character, known by the moniker 'The Bored Lord'. “We were asked to bring our own outfits and, of course, I like dressing up, so it was a good opportunity to wear my ruff and my bowler hat,” he says.
Nylon hopes to continue his relationship with the moving image; he wouldn't shy away from expanding his practice into creative directing, or costuming, for film clips. Movement in general is a source of inspiration for him, whether that be in the expanding and contracting cells of a plant or the wings of tiny flying insects.
“Movement is life, and a lot of the pieces I'm putting on the catwalk have an element of movement in them,” he explains. Very soft feathers and springy components that move when the models move are just some of the elements of Nylon's creations for MFSW 2013. In addition to his catwalk show, Nylon will appear at Reflections' Southgate premiere event, in 'Bored Lord' regalia. He will also be exhibiting a brand new, fully win-able creation, entitled Amour Pétillant (Sparkling Love). Attendees can also see a storyboard from Reflections, which offers a unique insight into the natural partnership of fashion and film.
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Over his decades-long career, Nylon has often been amazed by the level of support Melburnians show for fashion. “It's quite extraordinary, the energy that surrounds fashion in Melbourne,” he observes. But it's not just sell-out fashion week shows that makes the city Australia's catwalk capital, it's the intrepid forays into couture that even the impish youths of the inner-north make on a regular basis. “I was at an event the other night,” tells Nylon. “And there was this young boy there, wearing an '80s batwing-sleeve acid-wash denim jacket. I thought, 'Oh my God, I would have thought that was poison, back when I was his age', but now it has that retro appeal. And I thought, well, good on him, you know, that's kind of fun!” What does Nylon think of young people's penchant for beanies, then? “I don't care what they wear as long as they're wearing a hat,” he insists. “Someone who gets used to wearing a hat in their young life might wear one into the rest of their life. All milliners can do is put ideas out there and hope that people take them up. You can lead a horse to culture, but you can't make him wear a hat!”
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