Abstract:
In the late 1980s, Chris and Helen Cherry’s fashion label Workshop occupied a small store on the southern corner of the Century Arcade and central Auckland’s High Street. As well as what were their trademark coloured denim and linen garments, stock included tee-shirts with screened images of episodes from Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel, overlain with spidery Batman forms, dense rubbery doily patterns and simple, one-word texts in a quick, easy hand. Twenty years on, Swanndri, the iconic manufacturer of good keen bloke-wear, operates a fl agship store in Nuffi eld Street in Newmarket. The Karen Walker range designed for the label includes tee-shirts where the bushwear’s recognisable check is rendered as if in softer palette oil pastel and with a knowing, cheeky nod to the checkered patterning of both Swanndri and the global fashion phenomenon Burberry.