Peta Mathias - Shed Couture: A Passion for Fashion

I have always been deeply submissive to the seductiveness of cloth. I am haunted by the clothes of my past and they often come back to me out of the blue. I will be cooking a meal and suddenly regret selling a Zambesi chocolate-brown netting skirt. Then I wonder what happened to the beautiful dove-grey and lemon top that I wore with it. I remember the feel of these clothes, what I was doing when I wore them, the people I knew at the time, what hairstyle I was rocking, where I was at in my emotional life. Fashion is mysterious, irresistible and alluring.

The kernel for this book came from a series of Facebook and Instagram posts that I started at the end of 2017 that I called Shed Couture. I was going through the shed in my backyard. Yes, I know some people might have gardening equipment, power tools or rusty paint pots in their shed, but Im not some people. My shed functions as an extra wardrobe for clothes Im not currently wearing but dont want to get rid of. So, back in 2017, the shed was bulging and I was trying to thin it out, make the contents look like less stuff, wondering, If I dont remember whats in it, do I really need it? I admit I chucked or sold some things, but the deeper I delved, dragging out sealed plastic boxes and looking in them, the more I realised I had a shed full of valuable, beautiful clothes and shoes, long forgotten. This is not counting all the clothes and shoes in the actual wardrobes in my two homes in New Zealand and France.

Its fashionable now to follow Marie Kondo and get rid of anything you dont really need or arent really, really attached to, and I agree with that idea, but if I had done that to its logical conclusion, this book would not exist. I dont need 100 frocks, but I do want them because they are not just frocks they are beauty, art, history, emotion, memory, identity and, above all, joy.

I constantly and whimsically look at other peoples clothes, which, of course, tells me a lot about them. For some people it is about love, self-worth and care; for some it is art and standing out from the crowd; for some it is a utilitarian uniform; and for others just a matter of covering themselves with something, anything. This last group of people look in a mirror and see nothing except that maybe the parting in their hair is crooked. The first group look in a mirror and go, OMG, thank God I looked in the mirror how could I have even thought of putting those shoes with these pants!

The way clothes feel against my skin is important, which is why I mostly wear natural fibres of good quality its a simple pleasure in this vale of tears we call life. Caring for yourself is not being indulgent and egotistical, and fashion is not a superficial pursuit; it is necessary for self-preservation. Indian women living in the countrys slums are beautifully dressed in the best they can afford. They wear ear and toe rings and oil each others hair, and then, in elegant style, sweep and dust to keep even their humblest lodgings clean.

You should never throw out your most brilliant clothes or shoes because of this word: derivative. There are only so many ideas in the world, and once youve used most of them up you have to go back and redo the 50s, the 60s, the 70s even the ghastly 80s. If the enchanting Marni dress you wore to the art opening last week looks like the one your mother wore to Mass in 1956, its because fashion always come back. So, if your wardrobe feels dated, put the gems in it into your equivalent of a shed and, before long, theyll be the height of fashion again. The only depressing thing about keeping old clothes is you look at them and think: It is not possible my waist was that small Ive fallen into someone elses wardrobe. You cant even remember having a waist, let alone the meaning of the words 26 inches. I still have my debutante dress and can still fit into it, but it looks like a first communion dress. My mothers wedding dress looks like its for a doll.

Chances are, you are wearing clothes right now could be pyjamas, could be yoga sweats, could be a ball gown. We start getting clothed the minute we are born when the midwife wraps us in a soft cotton blanket. Our mother clutches us in her arms for the first time, and you can bet shes going to pass on a lot more about fashion than the dubious delights of wearing a hospital gown. You might grow up determined to dress nothing like your mother; I grew up with a mother who had a style to envy and who said, Always buy good clothes when youre flush so you still look fabulous when youre broke.

I have sold and given away a lot of clothes over the years, but some were so gorgeous, so expensive and so emotionally linked with an era in my life that I just couldnt part with them. Also, I gained weight over the period of menopause I put on more than a kilo a year till I weighed 75kg but I thought that maybe one day Id lose the weight and wear those clothes again. And thats exactly what happened: after years of patiently believing that being overweight couldnt surely be my lot in life, menopause ended, I started eating normally again and my weight went back to 60kg, where it was supposed to be. I didnt feel ugly when I was fat, but I felt uncomfortable and unfree, both physically and mentally. This is not a story about portion control, it is about the accidental confirmation of fashion sustainability in my life.

So I pulled my old garments from storage in my shed, aired and steamed them, then put them on and took photographs for social media to show that you dont need to go out and buy more have a look in the back of your cupboard, storage bunker or shed and you never know what you will find. The posts also showed that well-designed, good-quality clothes dont go out of fashion. I hoped other people would follow suit and put up photos of themselves in their old but ageless outfits, but the only thing that happened was that everyone wanted to buy mine. Drag queens would contact me and say, I want your whole wardrobe how much?