Craft couture: A whole new take on handiwork

Kate Megaw, wearing one of her knitted necklaces, says craft is appealing to more people. Pictures / Babiche Martens

Craft has come a long way, baby. Gone are the tea cosies, toilet-roll-cover dollies and baby quilts of your granny's day. A new generation of young women and men are reclaiming their forebears' handiwork and making it their own - in a decidedly fashionable way. Often they're not even calling it craft.

Everyone knows how the likes of Kate Moss, Julia Roberts and Chloe Sevigny have taken up knitting, but let's move on, shall we?

The craft revival started about five or six years ago, dovetailing nicely with the whole bohemian I'm-an-individual fashion trend. All of a sudden knitting, crocheting, quilting, embroidery and threading big wooden beads on fishing line was awfully trendy. It was all about adding your own touch to clothes in an era of mass manufacturing.

Since then, fashion has changed a lot, as it is wont to do. The over-embellished outfit featuring a gypsy skirt with your typical crafty bits and pieces isn't quite as popular anymore.

So what's happened to crafting? Has it, too, fallen out of fashion? Definitely not.

In the United States, the craft business has grown by US$3.2 billion ($4.8 billion) since 2002 and apparently three out of four American households now have at least one crafter, according to last year's American Craft and Hobby Association's survey.

And crafting with attitude is still going strong - as one popular website, Craftster.org puts it, "There are no tea cosies without irony."

In New Zealand modern crafting is alive and well and residing in various boutiques - although these days it's usually known as "handmade" or maybe even, in loftier circles, "art".

"Craft is crossing over," says Kate Megaw, who designs knitted rompersuits, shorts and knitted jewellery under the Penny Sage label, sold at the Miss Crabb boutique on Ponsonby Rd, where she works.

"And it's crossing over because it doesn't necessarily look like craft anymore. So it's appealing to more people," she says.

Miss Crabb also stocks other examples of craftiness that don't look traditional - such as silk appliqued dresses by the label Who Is Dead Martin? and prints on oversized Crabb T-shirts designed by local artist Pritika Lal.

You'll find other bits and pieces of handmade art and craft hidden between the more regularly manufactured garments at high-fashion boutiques all over town, whether it's hand-drawn artwork on a T-shirt, handmade jewellery or bits of recycling.

"There's definitely been a bit of a boom," agrees Zelda Murray, who makes True Love jewellery, which will soon be stocked at Kate Sylvester stores. "I think a lot more people are making things for themselves. They're wanting something individual either for their houses or to wear," she says.

After being discovered at New Zealand Fashion Week by influential Australian media in 2003, Murray's work - which included miniature vinyl records for earrings and romantically eclectic charm bracelets - was stocked at exclusive Sydney boutique Belinda, while the handicrafts craze was in full fashion swing.

Now after a brief hiatus Murray is making jewellery - but first, she and some friends have teamed up to sell their wares at the Saturday Shop on Karangahape Rd.

As the name suggests, the small loft-size boutique is open only on Saturdays and is the brainchild of Stella Corkery and her partner Alan Holt, who used to run Bunny boutique in the same neighbourhood.

"I only wanted to open one day a week because I wanted to spend the rest of my time on design. And I thought it would be interesting to get my art friends to make something that had relevance to fashion," says Corkery, explaining the store's ethos. "So there's a creative point of difference: these are clothes and accessories made by artists with a fresh perspective on fashion.

"I call myself three things - an artist, a musician and a designer - so some of that involves making things," says Corkery. "But it probably comes more from a design and art angle than a crafting one. It all coincides with the craft movement and there's a link - but we don't consider ourselves craftspeople and we're not necessarily coming from that place."

Everything in Saturday Shop is best described as handmade - there are accessories and clothing designed by Corkery and Holt for their new label, XOX, alongside Murray's own eye-popping doughnut bracelets and neon-coloured shrunken heads on necklaces. She also stocks batik work by video artist Sriwhana Spong, hand-drawn T-shirts by artist Kate Newby, accessories by Judy Darragh and recycled plastic-bag bracelets by Melbourne artist Christopher LG Hill.

Murray says she wouldn't necessarily use the word "craft" for any of that. "I don't actually like the word because, in a modern sense, people think it's something you just made out of scraps or that it's going to be really cheap.

"Craft has gone beyond that. People are relearning craft skills but the results are a little more well-made, not so DIY-ish," agrees Sam Whetton, the organiser of Craftwerk, a regular market evening with a range of stalls all selling handmade goods, that takes place every six weeks or so in St Kevin's Arcade, also just off Karangahape Rd.

Whetton, who's been making her own clothes and quirky handicrafts since she was a teenager, says she started this modern version of a craft fair as an interesting alternative to rock gigs. And she says she keeps a careful eye on the sort of stock being sold. "We're trying to make it [a venue] for people using traditional methods to make interesting new things and we're trying to keep it of a certain quality," she explains. "We're not expecting people to walk out of there with jester's hats on," she laughs.

And as for why the new school of crafting should be so popular - the last two Craftwerks attracted more than 500 people - Whetton says that "everything is different".

"They [the works] all have their own little quirks. And maybe you would even consider the ethical reasons for it - you know, you have something that someone wasn't exploited in the making of."

Corkery has another, more ephemeral reason for the ever-growing popularity of things handmade. "Customers are excited by what they see because they understand the concepts behind our particular handmade items. You can find really nice, really cool things from the original point of inspiration here. And for me personally that's a reaction to the commercial side of the fashion industry," she says. "And it might sound a bit cornball, but rather than things that were knocked out quickly, I wanted to be able to offer things that had more love in them.

"Yes," she says with a laugh, "I want our customers to feel the love - but in a sex, drugs and rock'n'roll way."

How to get some craft into your life

Craft is keeping up with fashion, so that little macrame, wooden-beaded patchwork number won't really sit well with the more streamlined, ladylike or futuristic garments setting runway trends.

Futuristic, quirky or rock'n'roll are the qualities you want your craft to have. And if you're at all worried about how to incorporate something a little off-the-wall like this into your wardrobe, take it slowly. No one wants to wear all craft all the time - you'd look deranged.

The easiest way to start might be to add a piece of handmade jewellery to your outfit. As Murray says, "a little bit of individuality goes a long way".

Next easiest is the handmade accessory and the hand-decorated or artist-designed T-shirt.

Often you'll also find clothing that's just lightly decorated by hand - for instance, a light cotton top by new designer Chloe Julian from Butterfly Net has the straps subtly decorated with little cross-stitches - but they look more like they've come from some artsy Japanese designer than from your great aunt's embroidery workshop.

And then finally, for those who prefer a bold handmade statement, there are the larger items, such as the glorious dresses made by Who Is Dead Martin? at Miss Crabb - loose, multi-coloured dresses appliqued with silk skulls and other interesting motifs that are more punk rock than nana pants.