A column by Ethan Newton.

I had a revelation a few years ago, one so elementary that I don’t know why it never occurred to me before. Every year and every season we create the history of clothing – this is our responsibility as product designers, and a great opportunity.

There are eras of garment design that hold my imagination in trance, about which I will consume all the information I can possibly find – the lore and the legend, the catalogues, the advertisements, all the instances of history that paint layer upon layer to create a movement.

That these movements were borne out of industries much like the one we find ourselves in today, makes me realise how instrumental we can be in the history of design.

My father once told me I was named after a character in the Western film ‘The Searchers’ – John Wayne’s civil war general Ethan Edwards – and I remember it compounded with many other early memories.

My father reciting the opening salvo of Frankie Laine’s ‘Wanted Man’ with a theatricality I still mimic today. Western movies on a Sunday afternoon where boots and holsters and saddles mixed with the sound of my mother’s sewing machine whirring away in the background. Roy Rogers and Gene Autry rubbing shoulders with Sgt Pepper-era Beatles in my own personal zeitgeist. Western utilitarianism and 1960s homemaking florals. 

You realise over time how much these things make up the fabric of your own design philosophy, whether you realise it or not. These influences were so deeply ingrained in me that I didn’t really become cognisant of it until years after the garments it inspired were already broken down and faded.

Nathan Turk

You could start that story by talking about Nathan Turk (above). Turk was a Hungarian-Jewish immigrant who, from his shop in North Hollywood in the 1930s, brought the influences of his Eastern European Jewish heritage, Norwegian Rosemaling design and Swedish Kurbitz to the American West. 

With a Cornely Chainstitch machine, he gave the austerity of early western wear a distinctly Eastern European flavour, one which came to represent Hollywood’s image of the American cowboy. When the Sons of the Pioneers sung ‘Cool Water’, or the original singing cowboy Gene Autry strode on stage, their Americanness was profoundly influenced by Nathan Turk’s Eastern European roots.

Nathan Turk walked so that Nudie Cohn could run – just as Tex Williams strode so that Elvis Presley could strut.

Nudie Cohn (above, left) pushed the singing-cowboy aesthetic a step or three further. European chain stitch was interpreted into rhinestones and sequins, the florals seen on Tex Williams a few decades earlier becoming sequinned cannabis leaves and naked ladies on Gram Parsons’s iconic white Nudie suit (above, right).

Elvis’s sequined jump suits were equally influenced by the outfits of the singer Spade Cooley, in much the same way Elton John’s ostentatious stage presence was influenced by Elvis. 

Manuel Cuevas and on

Manuel Cuevas continued the chain. As a Mexican master tailor working under Nudie, he took these Eastern European folk influences and gave them an authentic Mexican perspective.

Traditional hand embroidery of Charro suits and mariachi uniforms influenced the next generation of stage performers – folk florals combined with religious iconography, roses and crosses realised in metallic thread. 

The boxiness of 40s cowboy suits evolved through the influence of the ultra-tailored charro suits and Campesino garments into something more elegant and architectural, with Bob Dylan, Marty Stuart (above, right) and Dwight Yoakam incorporating his work into their style. 

When the musician Orville Peck uses fringe and mask to create his own particular Western personality, or designer Alessandro Michele brings sleek glamour to Gucci, they have Nathan Turk to thank, whether they know it or not (and I suspect they do).

From Eastern Europe to North Hollywood to the back streets of Harajuku (where our Bryceland’s store is today) these influences and cultures mixed and mated, and at the tail end of that is me – an Australian with a father who dreamed of the cowboy life, and a mother who can still quilt and embroider with far more finesse than I can.

As designers we have a hand in creating the design zeitgeist of each era we inhabit. For every iconic moment in clothing, there was a designer or an artisan realising their own perspective, shaping the world around them for the next generation. While none of us have the wheel to ourselves, we all get to steer the course slightly in our own direction.

Lazy design, driven by heavy branding and novelty, tries to pull us off course. It’s our responsibility to be diligent in design, and make this era one worthy of referencing in the years and generations to come.