Pivoting towards patience: Can made-to-order be our new ready-to-wear?
Interviewed by Lillian O’Neill (she/her)
This piece was created on the unceded lands of the Turrbal Nations
With an increasing lean towards fast paced and ever-changing fashion trends, it is becoming exceedingly difficult for not only consumers but for designers to contend with this momentum. Rather than turning to the well-known, convenient fashion brands that have garments ready at the click of a button. It is time to veer towards local designers that are consciously producing. These garments are made with intention to transcend past common trends all while being created consciously with regards to a more sustainable future.
Katalyst was established by local Brisbane designer, Kate Evans. After finishing her fashion degree at QUT in 2015, Kate has been focusing on creating well made garments all while maintaining her own ethical and sustainable values. More recently, Kate has released a core collection of made-to-order items, in hopes to shape a clearer view of the work she is trying to design. I sat down with Kate in her West End studio and spoke about how she maintains her ethical values while competing with the current fashion climate.
GROW IT ORGANICALLY
GROW IT ORGANICALLY
Hi Kate! Thank you for having us in your space/studio. So, could you tell us a little bit about yourself to start off with and how your interest in design all began?
I run my fashion business, just by myself. I’ve been in Brisbane for about ten or maybe eleven years and doing the brand seriously since 2018. I’ve been into making ever since I was probably ten or twelve. I started with paper dolls and making dolls clothes. Almost like a picture-perfect little story. I started making properly when I began sewing lessons in high school and then studied fashion at QUT and finished in 2015. But I have always had a passion for figuring out how to put things together, like maths and problem solving. I have always enjoyed building things and seeing them come together with my own hands has always been at the forefront.
You said that you graduated university in 2015, but your brand really started in 2018. What then inspired you to then start KATALYST?
I think the fashion degree can be quite intense, particularly if you have a lot of expectations for yourself. In such a popularity driven and competitive industry, you want to be the best and I put so much pressure on myself when I was in university to be that way. So, after I finished, I needed a little bit of a breather. I think it is a common factor among a lot of people that finish fashion degrees, they are pressured to be amazing and ride the train that is the success of their grad collection. But I took a few years, I finished my business degree and worked to earn some money and I was able to come back with more energy and a bit of a fresh perspective on what I actually wanted to do rather than being caught up, maybe in what I felt other people wanted for me or how I could succeed the most. I could more focus on what I enjoyed about design.
Before we dive deeper into the design process of your brand, I wanted to ask you about the ‘values’ page on your website. Why did you feel this was important to include?
Sustainability has always been at the forefront for me, I guess you could say it takes up a lot of my brain space. Particularly working in an industry that can be quite image focused and driven growth is a huge part of a lot of fashion businesses. Particularly with fast fashion, people sometimes are just churning out shit for Instagram. They just want that success really quickly. Because those images are there and social media feels so time sensitive, it is like the chicken or the egg situation, where consumers think, “oh I can buy that so quickly, cheaply and easily”, and I need to have the image, I and the social capital that comes with having that piece. Then they share a photo of it and then it goes round and round and round. This use of social media can be such a wonderful way for small brands like me to get their work out there, but the problem lies in creating cheap, unethical made clothes that are designed to serve the purpose of an image and nothing else. Some companies are just feeding people these products in a way that doesn’t encourage consideration or contemplation of the purchase. And I don’t really want to contribute, I often think about not wanting to contribute more waste to the world, I guess. Even though I know I can’t completely not do that, by having a fashion business. I would love to as much as I can, encourage people to think about what they are buying and why they are buying it. How it fits them and how it is going to integrate into the rest of their clothes. Just keeping it within the conversation, keeping it talked about and thought about.
Yeah, I completely agree, it is imperative to keep sustainability within the conversation. You just said that “trends are rapidly changing all the time”, other than what you are doing now with your recent collection. What do you think is important? In terms of timeless silhouettes, product integrity, other than made to order, what is something that transcends past fashion trends?
I think it is about looking personally, customer to customer, or person to person, about what they actually want to wear all the time. I think it is really wonderful to see big brands that are creating basics that everyone wears in a sustainable way, that are affordable and accessible to the wider market. As a smaller brand, making everything myself, I know I’m not able to achieve that and sustain myself as a business. The service that I try to provide is making people think a little bit more about why they want something, and if they want it, going in and giving them the best experience. Making sure it fits perfectly for them. Often helping people select fabrics if they need something else that I don’t have. Trying to source something that is going to work best for them and just opening that conversation.
I think you have really opened up that conversation through your work, especially with your most recent collection. With your ‘made-to-order’ collection, I believe you toiled all the garments in the same fabric and then you have a catalogue of fabric swatches. Talk us through your new collection and how it came to be.
It’s something that developed really organically because a lot of those styles, I first developed years ago, like back in 2018/2019. I realised I was struggling to showcase these core pieces in a way that people could understand long after each limited run of the style was sold out. Being such a small business, doing photoshoots and getting marketing together every single time you produce three pairs of shorts in one fabric or something, isn’t really viable. But being able to collate all of the work that I have put together over the last four or five years and be like okay, I’m going to make this really really clear to people and simultaneously developing the website to communicate this in a more polished way, so that people interstate or overseas, who don’t know me personally, can get a clear idea of my brand. So, I guess it has always been a part of what I do but being able to display it outwards, that was what releasing the collection was I suppose. I did a pop up at Contra, that is in the city (Brisbane), a couple of years ago and I created the collection for that pop-up actually. I had a swatch book full of fabrics and people could select from. Then I was finally able to get it online and make that the core premise of my website.
As far as fabrics go, which is a whole other topic in terms of sustainability. How do you go about that? Are you sourcing from overseas, do you source locally?
I source locally. I’m very lucky, I work at the Fabric Store in the Valley (Fortitude Valley) as well. So that has been a wonderful journey, working there and learning so much more about fabrics. But I primarily use deadstock fabrics, designer deadstock. So, it has already been produced. You know, given away, discarded for a different use and the best thing about that, you get to work with what you have and sometimes there’s some really interesting flaws and sometimes there’s some weird details that were obviously designed for a specific purpose and then you kind of flip them on their head. There is so much good stuff already out there and I think it really should inform the design process, if we want to think sustainably. Using what you have is one of the main things I love doing when I make pieces.
Do you think that love for, “using what you have”, comes from your previous work? Like your handkerchief tops, they are all made from deadstock fabric, right?
Yeah, most of them are made from deadstock fabric. There is only a couple of fabrics that I use, for example the denim for my custom trousers, that I wasn’t able to source from deadstock at the time I started making them. I had a few orders locked in for the same style, so I did source some fabric from New Zealand. But I want to work towards using all deadstock, or certified sustainable produced fabric. Ethical certifications can be really expensive for fabric suppliers and brands. It can be expensive and the minimum order quantities for new fabrics can be high – for me it’s not really viable. But the deadstock fabrics, ever since I learned more about that possibility, I’ve pretty much used it in everything that I make.
For other emerging designers that, like yourself, are coming from Brisbane or other places within Australia. What tips would you have for them in order to have a successful, profitable, smaller business but still want to remain sustainably conscious?
My approach, I think, everyone approaches it a little bit differently, but I see a lot of the work I do as an arts practice. I’ve gone up and down in the last few years about making things that I know will sell and that will produce profit for the business and balancing that with creative development, I guess the fun things that make me enjoy what I do. I think it’s about developing your own idea of success. I work another job as well, that pays my rent and that allows me the freedom to make creative decisions and enjoy the rest of the time. Particularly these days, when things are so fast, and you are looking at your phone constantly at other people’s things and the praise they are getting from their work. It is really important to focus inward. I think that in turn makes you more successful and other people see that if you are just focusing on your creative point of view. Also, by trying to grow it a bit more organically that way. I found that from that approach, I have found a steady organic growth.
What is next for you? What is the next step for KATALYST?
I would like to expand interstate and get some of the pieces out to Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, and Perth – and maybe do some pop-ups and allow people to book in for custom appointments too. At the moment, I’m working on figuring out a way to communicate the work that I do. I think, for so many small designers, unless you are very good with social media, it all goes on behind the scenes and it’s hard to communicate that in a polished way that reaches other people. I want to keep focusing on that.
Thank you Kate so much for sitting down with Demure!
FOCUS INWARD
FOCUS INWARD
PHOTO CREDITS
Models:
Maria Harrison
Rebel Rebel Leon
Siena Monnier
Jonah Lions
Maiana Kerr
Dasha Nechytailo
Clea Music
Photographers:
Tony Kalajzich
James Caswell
Dana Moon
Stylists:
Ayla Anderson