Thread of a theme

Karen Walker's 2010 range 'She's Cracked' is about

By now, this season's must-have item - be it shirt, skirt, trousers or jacket - has silently been tempting you from a shop window to buy it, take it home and wear it. But that seductive garment in your favourite store is much more than a mere item of clothing; it's also the physical embodiment of an often obscure idea that has been made tangible through a designer's sheer will and unwavering commitment to an initial concept.

The precise origins may not always be obvious but rest assured that each fashion designer is focused on ensuring her collection stays true and relevant to the big idea that sparked its genesis. The process is never the same for any two designers, yet the creative journey from starting point to final execution is always fascinating. Sometimes the track is linear; sometimes it's convoluted - but, always, it is painstaking, with an admirable attention to detail. We talk to three leading local designers about the inspiration for and interpretation of their current collections.

Kate Sylvester was inspired to create her Take a Hike collection by reading about the exploits of two women adventurers: Lady Florence Baker and Idina Sackville. The former "paraded through Africa in full Edwardian corsetry and costuming" while Sackville "went big-game hunting in her couture gowns," according to Sylvester. "What I loved was these women were so bold and so adventurous but they were so well dressed while they were doing it," she says.

The fashion designer can relate on a personal level. She walked part of the Routeburn Track last year in faux fur jacket and skinny pants. "I was very glamorous and very warm. And the very sensible, steady, tramping types were looking very concerned but, man, it worked."

Her own love of tramping and the great outdoors, coupled with the colourful legacy of Baker and Sackville, led to the premise that it's possible to be both intrepid and fashionable at the same time. And so, Take a Hike was born.

Sylvester says that a style called Florence, a Hessian sundress with a bright pink rubber zip, represents the clash of hiking and high fashion. "I played the whole time on this mash-up between earth and plastic," she says. "It's all about playing with this whole idea of man-made and nature, synthetic and earth ... and making them work together."

The right mood is always an intrinsic part of the central idea. "I knew I wanted something that felt very uplifting and exciting and thrilling and light and buoyant," says Sylvester who expressed this sentiment by choosing light silks and "very pure clean colours" such as canary yellow and sky blue.

"Our customers really respond; they enjoy the concept element of what we do and are always really interested in the story of each collection," she says. "But the bottom line is: in the end, it's just got to be a really great frock that people want to wear."

Treasures and precious objects from days gone by often form the starting point for Trelise Cooper. "I take a reference from history and give it a modern twist," she says, adding that she often finds inspiration in a rural French marketplace in the height of a European summer.

Last July, in the "gorgeous little village" of Lalinde in the Dordogne, Cooper discovered two early 18th-century military scarves that ignited her new collection French Militaire.

If she understood the French vendor's story correctly, the scarves were used to provide pictorial military instructions to illiterate soldiers at war. "There's a romance that's always appealing to me so ... there's something feminine about it even though there was nothing feminine about what these soldiers were doing."

Cooper was attracted to the scarves' colours: deep red, black and antique cream. "I'm always drawn immediately," she says, "I have an immediate reaction that I love something although I don't know what I'm going to do with it."

What she ended up doing was combining the designs to create a fabric with her own print, which became a dress, skirt and top that formed the basis of French Militaire - a collection she says has a "slight Les Miserables feel". Jackets featuring military-style braiding and buttoning - all carefully researched in historical books for authenticity - continue the underlying theme. "It's not a literal interpretation but it has that flavour, that essence," says Cooper.

Trelise Cooper's latest range references the markets and historic villages she explored while on holiday in France, along with the military influences found in the costumes of Les Miserables.

Over the years, classics such as The Ugly Ducking, Vile Bodies and the movie The Breakfast Club have helped provide the stories behind Karen Walker's collections. For 2010 (above & left) her range, She's Cracked, is about "frivolity mixed with disaster".

The names chosen are also true to the concept. "It's quite a big deal, every range, coming up with a name we haven't used before, one that's got some playfulness, a bit of humour." In this instance, fabrics are christened Bastille, Montmartre, Clementine and Amelie while styles are given tongue-in-cheek names such as Braid Little Tailor, Military Frill, Revolution Road, Shoulder of Fortune and Vestpoint Graduate. A double-fronted jacket is called Double or Nothing; a vest embellished with chains, Unchained Melody.

Karen Walker draws on an eclectic selection of influences and cultural references in her work. She has based previous collections on themes as diverse as cults in the American mid-west, The Ugly Duckling story, power blackouts and Ally Sheedy's character in The Breakfast Club. "Some ideas come from flamboyant and subconscious places and others are quite literal," she says. Self-referentially, Walker found inspiration for this coming season in the Broken Pearls print from her own 2000 collection, an idea which was derived from the "Bright Young Things" of a decadent society in Evelyn Waugh's 1930 novel Vile Bodies. "For 2010 we relooked at it in the modern context as a representation of the current economic meltdown," she says. "That's what we loved about the Waugh reference; there was this looming disaster that would rearrange everything. Frivolity mixed with disaster makes for interesting fashion."

Three distinctive prints - depicting broken pearls, shattered crystal and broken china - reflect the She's Cracked range's central concept. "The challenge was to create a print that at first looked like a floral or a paisley then at second glance you realise it's a whole lot of expensive china that's been steamrolled, for instance."

The cut and silhouette of the styles also underscore the themes of uncertainty and duality. "We worked to realise certain elements in the clothes that allow you to see things from several different ways." The collection features tailored and pulled-together trench coats that deconstruct with a simple zip; slashed dresses, tops and T-shirts - and slinky skin hats with raw seams.