Unravelled stories. Meet: Tamara from REMUSE
Introducing REMUSE, where futurism meets nature. Delving into the brand's portfolio your eyes will be greeted with peculiar shapes and form, experimental and authentically dyed garments. The face behind the Melbourne label is Tamara. Read on further to get to know REMUSE and Tamara more in-depth!
TSS: Paint us a picture of your childhood growing up in New York?
Tamara: Carpet floors, cousins, plastic toys and family gatherings - whether for weddings, birthdays, funerals or Kwanzaa - there was always a collection of family and familiars close by, joined by long wooden tables and takeaway plates from all the extra dishes. Camping, art class, and dance with Alvin Ailey's youth program kept me busy and formed my early appreciation for art and performance.
TSS: How did you fall into your fashion making practice?
Tamara: Clothing is like personal alchemy. Depending on how you dress, you can form community with others who share a similar value or system of life intentionality. The things you produce in the world are often, initially, perceived by the packaging of your personhood - behaviour, demeanor and dress. These things all fascinated me. What fascinated me even more was how to construct and build intentionality in both the creation of the textile, garment and commercial expression to market- that led to learning through self study and formal study of fashion and textile design.
TSS: Your work is based on a slow-making approach, what inspires you?
Tamara: The planet requires it. People endlessly being pulled in all directions by the attention economy requires.
TSS: What is your favourite materials/ process/ making technique to work with and why? i.e. We see a lot of organic indigo dying...
Tamara: I love the process of alchemy in indigo, how it requires intentionality to yield its colour. While other dyeing processes are a bit more intuitive in their process, indigo requires attention to temperature, ingredient amounts, sequential mixing and to reward you for your hard earned attention to detail it creates a beautiful colour gradient when exposed to the oxygen in the air.
TSS: Your garments are ECA accredited, why is this important?
Tamara: It is important to support ethical garment manufacturing and an organisation that provides a point of reference for what ethical garment manufacturing wages are. This is also a great organisation that lessens the barrier to entry for the high cost of manufacturing to smaller makers who commit to making in house. The growth of in house manufacturing also supports both innovative design and more made to measure artisanal practices.
TSS: What do you wish for customers to take away from your brand and products?
Tamara: We are inspired by and created by nature, the movement of the natural world, ebb flow and the natural random progression of life. We are a slow fashion brand that seeks to embody change.
TSS: Your thoughts and feelings on supporting culturally diverse designers/makers and communities?
Tamara: Culturally diverse designers and makers have been a source of inspiration for the commercial fashion industry for centuries and yet often stripped of ownership or visibility. It is so wonderful to see an organisation such as The Social Studio create a space of conscious visibility for makers who often are overlooked or confined to the category of appropriated inspo.
