Australian
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Fashionista – Naomi Goodsir (2003)

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Original classification rating: PG. This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

Naomi Goodsir talks about how she developed as a milliner. In the early days, she could only afford to flat pattern and so developed the origami style of designing her creations for which she’ll use any unusual material she finds.

Curator’s notes

by Janet Bell

Naomi Goodsir uses origami techniques and a most unusual array of materials, including lace and feathers as well as the traditional felt, in her work. She’s recently found a whole cache of swizzle sticks for stirring cocktails that she’s sculpted into a creation that Lee Lin Chin almost gets away with wearing to the races.

Teacher’s notes

provided by The Le@rning FederationEducation Services Australia

This clip shows milliner Naomi Goodsir talking to interviewer Lee Lin Chin about how she started working as a milliner and about her distinctive approach to hat construction. In her showroom she works on a hat and describes her design process. The camera ranges around the showroom, focusing on a range of Goodsir’s hats. At the end of the clip Goodsir explains how she constructed a hat on display out of swizzle sticks. Music accompanies the visuals.

Educational value points

  • Naomi Goodsir is one of a handful of notable and highly regarded Australian milliners whose hats are considered to be collectable items. Goodsir creates fanciful works of art that sometimes seem closer to pieces of sculpture than hats and derives inspiration and materials from second-hand objects she finds in opportunity shops. An example in the clip is a hat constructed around a framework of cocktail stirrers or swizzle sticks.
  • The clip draws attention to the need for each designer and specialist artisan in the fashion industry to find a way to differentiate what they do from the work of others in order to market their products and services. Goodsir refers to her ‘points of difference’: the use of flat patterns that are folded like origami and the use of found materials such as ties and other objects in the construction of her hats.
  • In the clip Goodsir uses a hat block – a wooden shape that represents the head and around which the shape of a hat is formed. Also known as a hat form or bashing block, it is the traditional tool that milliners use to mould their hats. It is traditionally carved from wood, but modern blocks are sometimes made from polystyrene and plastic. Initially Goodsir could not afford a hat block and so she developed a 'flat pattern’ method of hatmaking.
  • Fashionista is an SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) lifestyle television show and it employs film techniques to make the information entertaining. In the clip a quick succession of images within Goodsir’s studio of hats in stacks, individual hats and hat blocks are intercut with film of the interview to add interest. The sometimes erratic movement of the camera adds pace and variety to the visual images. A fast-paced, rhythmic music track creates vitality throughout.