Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows shoe and accessory designer Donna-May Bolinger in her Sydney showroom talking about her design process with interviewer Lee Lin Chin. She tells Chin that each of her collections is inspired by a different imaginary muse. She shows Chin a slipper from about 1930 and the new shoes that the slipper inspired. Bolinger says that she collates objects collected over many years into groups that might belong to each muse. She explains that the printed images on a handbag relate to the life of one of her muses, a circus ring mistress.

Educational value points

• Donna-May Bolinger (1960–) has made a successful career in the fashion industry. She graduated in sculpture, fashion and textile design, and chose to work with leather because of its sculptural qualities. Since opening a business in Sydney in 1992 she has developed a reputation for high-quality handmade leather products. Her work is exhibited at Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, and her shoes were worn in the film Moulin Rouge (2001).

• The clip reveals how Bolinger combines the skills of an artist and a European-trained artisan to produce her handmade shoes and leather accessories. She sketches her ideas, derived from objects and images she has collected from antique shops and markets, and then makes a prototype of the product using the knowledge of shoemaking she learnt in Italy. She engages master craftsmen to make and assemble various components of the finished product.

• The clip demonstrates one way that an artist can use an object as inspiration. Bolinger shows a slipper worn by a high-wire acrobat in the 1930s that inspired the creation of a modern pair of stiletto shoes. These stilettos then form part of Bolinger’s 'ring mistress’ collection. As part of her design process Bolinger gathers from her own collection objects her imaginary muse may have owned, and she reproduces images of some of the objects on her leather accessories.

• Bolinger shows Chin a leather bag that has been decorated with digitally printed photographic images. Bolinger worked with an independent printer and chemist to develop a digital-printing process that produces photographic images of her collages on leather without adversely affecting the durability and flexibility of the material.

• Bolinger employs the idea of a muse to guide the creation of her collections, an idea that has a long tradition in artistic endeavour. The idea derives from Greek mythology – the Muses were goddesses or spirits who embodied the arts and inspired the creative process. In modern English usage a muse refers to a real or imaginary person who is a source of inspiration, usually in artistic pursuits.