Iconic Australian designer Martin Grant on his major career retrospective
The fashion designer-to-the-stars has dressed the likes of Cate Blanchett and the Qantas crew. Ahead of his survey exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, Grant gives a glimpse into his surreal world.
Martin Grant is very funny and ripples with laughter when he talks. His good humour is informed by many decades working in the fashion industry with its mad creativity and the energy of showtime in Paris. Grant is one of those designers who quietly produces the most expertly tailored clothes that probably inspired The Row, and in turn might have been inspired by Jean Muir. If you know, you know. Next month, a comprehensive retrospective of Grant’s work to date will open at the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia (NGV), the result of what he calls one giant covid clean-out. “Covid was actually a fantastic catalyst for change for me,” he reflects. “When everything closed down in Paris, all our staff scattered across France. It was a chance to take stock. I’d been sending my archives out to the suburbs for over 25 years without ever looking at them. This was the chance to bring them back, sort them out and decide what to do with them.”
The answer was obvious: gift the archive to the NGV, which had already been collecting his work. Grant’s first collaboration with the gallery was in 2005 for an exhibition titled Martin Grant: Paris, featuring his work from the 1990s through to spring/summer ’05/’06. “There’s an incredible fashion collection at the NGV. In Australia, you could easily say it’s the most significant. And they’ve had Krystyna Campbell-Pretty buying for their collection over the last 10 years,” he says with a nod to the Melbourne philanthropist and gallery supporter. Katie Somerville, senior curator of fashion and textiles at the NGV, curated that 2005 exhibition, and has an in-depth knowledge of Grant’s practice and design legacy. Now, two decades later, she is working with him again. “This retrospective allows us to now focus on his work in a substantial way, explore his career, with this remarkable archive donation,” says Somerville. Working on the exhibition has been, “truly collaborative”, she says. “It covers the evolution of his classics, explores his use of colour and working creative relationships, and ends with all the ‘wow’ of his big pieces, the glamour. It showcases great runway footage and contextual elements, too.”
When the boxed-up archive arrived, Grant admits he was overwhelmed by the sheer volume. “We had boxes and boxes and boxes of collections dating back to 2000. The one fantastic thing was that it had survived, nothing had been touched, and it was all in great condition,” he says. It was also confronting to recall the past. “There was a certain period, a kind of frenzied period of creation and everything moved very fast and sometimes it wasn’t as great as I would have liked it to have been,” he says.
“We were working like mad, creating four collections a year, putting on shows and selling and travelling.” The editing was a major job, he concedes. “It was harder than creating a collection!”
Starting with 600 pieces, he ultimately gifted 200 pieces to the NGV. “For the exhibition, I’m actually bringing another 50 pieces that will end up in the collection, too.”
The NGV was an obvious choice for Grant, who affectionately refers to it as, “my old local gallery”. A Melbourne native, he speaks of the gallery with the same warmth and love one might reserve for a favourite local bar. The portrait of Grant with one eye covered, one of many that will feature in the exhibition, was taken by renowned Melbourne-born photographer Polly Borland. “She has been my closest friend since I was 15 or 16,” says Grant. “Our creative process was parallel throughout that time. I’ve been on the phone with her pretty much every day, selecting photos from that early period for the exhibition. It was an incredible time. We were all young, very creative, and Melbourne in particular was a pretty exciting place to be. It was where the first real creative fashion industry began. It was the most exciting place to be in Australia, I think.”
Grant recalls the emerging music scene and the unique mix of artists, designers, architects and musicians. “It was one big group. I think we were so young; everyone was just kind of wild, it was a great punky time,” he recalls. “Nick Cave, artists such as Jenny Watson, Ross Piggott, Susan Norrie – there were lots of good people. We just all went for it. That’s the interesting thing, you dive in and you just keep going and see where you end up. And that’s what I still do to this day. I mean, who knew I’d end up in living in a farmhouse in Arles? That was never planned.” Moving to a new home was another major change that occurred during the pandemic. “We bought the house in Arles, in the south of France, and moved out of Paris,” he explains of where he and partner, Mustapha Khaddar, who is also general manager of the label, are now based. “We’ve still got our apartment in Paris though, and our office. In Arles there’s quite a great creative community. It’s a tiny town with very beautiful Roman architecture. It’s also home to Rencontres d’Arles, a photography festival that happens every year and has been running since 1970.”
Even before the lockdowns, Grant decided to change the way he worked, pulling back from the “frenzy of four collections a year and producing, producing, producing. I’d slowed my whole process down to a much more ethical way of working,”
he says. He also started revisiting styles and fabrics that already existed. “It was a fantastic process of using what you had. And it was an ethical process because we were using dead stock and it meant looking back at things that always had quite a timeless feel, too, which is also very much part of what I do.”
The Grant signature is sublime: pared back, flowing, with super-chic modernity. His design essence, he says, is hard to define, perhaps because he is always refining it, and maybe like all creatives, is never done. “In the exhibition, the first thing you’ll see is what I’m calling the DNA collection of coats and jackets, which is like the skeleton of my last 30 years of work,” he explains of his perfect tailoring. “I’ve always been best known for my coats and jackets and it’s kind of the pieces that started off as experiments back in the day and have now become tried and tested; the pieces I pretty much rework every season and the core of what I do. It’s been interesting for me to look at that, because I can actually get it down to six to eight styles, and people are still happy with them.”
He still goes to Paris for fashion week and to present the collection, but his team is down to “an absolute minimum, which is kind of a fantastic. There’s a real freedom, especially after decades of working it feels now like a luxury, a really nice way of doing it.” He has been working with the same small family-run manufacturer on the outskirts of Paris for the past 30 years. “They know the work better than I do because they’ve been doing it for so long. We make things that exist within the collection to order, but I’ve slowed down the whole atelier part of creating specific things for specific people.”
Grant has a legion of loyal clients. “Even if they’ve got that jacket in grey, they’re happy to have it in red,” he says. “We have specific clients, and when the style suits them, they love it, and it keeps evolving naturally.” He has been worn by an impressive list of discerning women, but has never had a muse. One of the most influential people in his career, though, was André Leon Talley.
“Oh, I loved André. I met him early on and he became a friend and from then on it was a whirlwind, which continued until he died. He was fabulous. He introduced me to all the fabulous people that then became important during my career. People like Lee Radziwill, Candy Pratts Price and Naomi Campbell … [André was a] friend, a very important friend at the right time and the right place.” Cate Blanchett and Lady Gaga are two of the other distinguished women who have worn his designs.
“Those who know, know,” Somerville says. “Martin is very clear about his vision and every season there is a transformation of ideas and what’s so fascinating is seeing this evolution. It’s not about sequins and surface decoration; there is a structural, sculptural approach to dressing the female form. I think you might agree he is one of fashion’s quiet achievers.” What’s next for the Australian in Paris? He laughs, rather wickedly. He is buzzing with a secret project, which, under the condition it remains secret, he shares. It’s a good one – part of his trip to Melbourne to be revealed soon – and involves something brilliant, just quietly.
Martin Grant is on at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia from March 28.
This story is from the February issue of Vogue Australia, on sale now.
