Automotive mannequin evokes Lilli’s ‘out-of-the-box concepts’ 

A YOUNG clothier has been chosen as one in every of 4 finalists in a design competitors being held by Mazda Australia to mark the arrival of its MX-30 mannequin, its first step into the electric-vehicle market.

I caught up with Lilli McKenzie, schooled in Canberra and a pupil within the Bachelor of Style Design Honours at RMIT College, Melbourne.

She was placing the ending touches to her entry, which is being mentored by vogue icon Margie Woods from Australian vogue label, Viktoria & Woods.

The finalists are tasked with designing an outfit impressed by the materials and leathers used within the automotive’s inside design. 

McKenzie says hers will include three completely different items, utilizing vegan leather-based to create a skirt and cork and felt to vogue a bodice. 

No stranger to success, in 2019 McKenzie was chosen to design the Melbourne and Olympic Park Belief workers uniforms, that are worn by greater than 1000 workers, however this time she’ll be turning her consideration to sustainability points, with every challenge to be reviewed and aligned with the UN’s 17 world Sustainable Improvement Objectives.

In accordance with McKenzie, the problem has been built-in into RMIT curriculum and a documentary movie of the method is being made as finalist response to the call-out to create outfits taking inspiration from MX-30 supplies comparable to vegan leather-based, heritage cork and repurposed plastic waste.

The winner, chosen by Woods and Mazda workers, might be awarded a visit to Mazda’s Japan headquarters to take pleasure in a mentorship with Mazda’s world design chief, Ikuo Maeda.

Regardless of a peripatetic life to date, McKenzie has sturdy connections to Canberra. Initially schooled at Forrest Major, well-known for producing full of life extroverts, she did her secondary research in Melbourne and Perth, however her household have now moved again to Canberra and her brother goes to Telopea Park College, the place he research French.

Massive sister Lilli is expert in French, too, following a faculty alternate to France that helped her converse it fluently – very useful when she gained one other competitors and obtained to attend Paris Style Week in 2019.

She’s already completed her fundamental bachelor research at RMIT, however is now doing the add-on honours. 

“RMIT is giving me plenty of alternatives,” she says. 

“I’ve at all times had a ardour for making garments out of random objects, repurposing outdated papers from my dad – I wish to assume out of the field.”

Fortunately, at her faculty in Perth she was capable of examine textiles proper by years 11 and 12 which she did enthusiastically, additionally finding out pictures. 

In actual fact, she toyed with the thought of pursuing pictures severely however discovered there have been “extra alternatives and openings for design work, it’s multifaceted and multimedia so it’s very thrilling”.

It was her dad and mom who pushed Lilli to do vogue, as she’d at all times liked costume design with faculty musicals in thoughts, however when she handed RMIT a big photographic portfolio, the query was: “How can this design-minded pupil progress in vogue?”

“However they simply needed to see that you’ve a inventive thoughts and may be modern and there’s no restrict to the approaches. My thoughts is at all times considering how can I take advantage of unconventional supplies,” says McKenzie, who nonetheless loves to gather snapshots from buildings, landscapes and crowds to get inspiration for her vogue designs.

Nonetheless, she pays tribute to the “artisanal” and fine-motor expertise comparable to embroidery, that are inspired at RMIT, saying, “they assist to solidify your sensible expertise”.

Definitely, it’s a problem to design with a automotive in thoughts, nevertheless it’s not nearly aesthetics, she tells me, it’s about combining the usage of supplies and the design facets in a possibility to consider design another way.

“There’s fairly a robust similarity between a automotive and a garment,” she says, as she explains how her honours challenge hyperlinks into the Mazda competitors.

“My honours challenge is weaving-based, a garment in new methods… I’m trialling a technique of making by weaving on to the physique utilizing the physique as a loom.

“I’m utilizing conventional weaving methods however recreating them in a contemporary context as I weave vegan leather-based collectively. The cork is nearly the loom, mounted across the physique.”

The hybrid MX-30 is on the market from Phillip Mazda.