Future unclear for company that safeguards a treasure trove of Australian film history
WHEN Suzy Carter and Mark Lucas open their 600 sqm “wardrobe”, they see 70,000 items of clothing worn on screen by some of Australia’s biggest stars. But their future is unclear
Confidential
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MOST of us look in our wardrobes and find precious little to wear.
But when Suzy Carter and Mark Lucas open their 600 square metre “wardrobe”, they see 70,000 items of clothing worn on screen by some of Australia’s biggest stars.
Carter was a designer who had worked in television, and Lucas had just dumped his job as an insurance broker, when the couple started Hero Frock Hire 26 years ago in Leichhardt.
But despite having outfitted actors in Moulin Rouge, King Kong, The Matrix trilogy, Australia, Red Dog, The Sapphires, Hacksaw Ridge, Alien: Covenant and countless other films and television series, the pair are now fighting to safeguard Hero’s future and their secluded spot in Leichhardt as inner city rental prices skyrocket.
In their Canal Road Film Centre premises, key pieces are displayed on mannequins.
There’s a lacy Edwardian dress worn by Judy Davis in Gillian Armstrong’s 1979 film My Brilliant Career.
Heath Ledger’s bullet-holed green overcoat, together with waistcoat and other items, recall his title role in the 2003 film Ned Kelly.
Greta Scacchi’s sumptuous dresses from the 1985 film Burke And Wills came to Hero when designer George Liddle moved house.
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Liddle told Carter the dresses were under his desk for 25 years “and I’ve got to let go”.
Elle Macpherson’s diaphanous outfit from the 1994 movie Sirens is in the collection. Toni Collette’s red sequined dress from Muriel’s Wedding still glitters brightly.
And Joel Jackson’s Hawaiian shirt from the 2015 TV miniseries Peter Allen: Not The Boy Next Door is a favourite of the couple.
They’ve got 1960s school uniforms from television’s Skippy, virginal white dresses from Peter Weir’s 1975 classic Picnic At Hanging Rock, and a rack full of floral dresses from Cloud Street. Many costumes are safeguarded in Hero’s “archival collection” and are not hired out to productions.
Hero’s collection keeps growing, thanks largely to filmmakers who donate their costumes to Carter and Lucas at the end of shooting.
Filmmakers want these costumes to be kept safe and made available to the industry.
They also know that Carter spends countless hours chasing down the histories of all the costumes and adding the details to Hero’s database.
Just this week Carter received 10 boxes of costumes from Simon Baker’s acclaimed film of Tim Winton’s book Breath.
“You know who wore this, don’t you?” she said, unpacking one of Elizabeth Debicki’s sexy outfits from her role as Baker’s on-screen wife Eva.
From Carter and Lucas’s perspective, hiring out pieces from the collection to film and television productions creates an income that allows them to keep going.
But the collection is getting too big for the couple to manage.
They are talking to key stakeholders in the film industry, hoping a consortium will buy Hero and safeguard its future.
But with costly inner-city rentals and an uncertain film industry, they are finding that “nobody wants to commit to the long term” and “nobody wants to own infrastructure”.
Talks continue, but there is no news yet.
Hero’s long-term lease at Canal Road Film Centre, a state government asset in Leichhardt, ran out three years ago. The company is now on a monthly rental arrangement, which makes Carter and Lucas feel unstable.
“If the lease isn’t renewed, that would break us because we couldn’t afford to move,” Lucas said.
“We would probably have to auction (the collection) off piecemeal.”
That would be a sad day for the film industry.
For example, Hero hired an astonishing 500 pieces of costume to the recent Foxtel television adaptation of Picnic At Hanging Rock.
If Hero goes, “there will be a lot of naked actors running around,” Lucas said.