Within hours of Christopher Esber’s showcase at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia 2012, Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue joined a chorus of industry voices to proclaim his the best production of the week. As Trademark Developers director Matthew Khouri prepares to extend his magic touch to fashion retail spaces, he reveals the process behind his Fashion Week spell.
Trademark Developers was established in late 2011. We are a group of professionals specialising in project management, set design, shop fit outs, construction consulting, quantity surveying, estimating and commercial/residential construction. I am the director of the company, a project manager and registered quantity surveyor. My father is an architect and I have been heavily involved in the construction/design industry for most of my life.
Christopher Esber and I grew up together and have been friends from the age of five. I have seen him work towards building a brand with a strong point of view over the past few years. We share similar tastes and I know what he likes, we have a good rapport and feed off each other’s energy. His collection was about competitive sports and he had referenced one of Bruce Lee’s film’s Enter the Dragon; the final fight scene in a mirrored maze. Working out how the mirrors were to be placed was the first step to the process; having light refract off the mirrored surfaces to give Esber that appear /disappear effect he was after for his presentation.
Seven installations were made in total and there were 36 mirrored panel strips cut at 200mm x 2.4m and 2 strips cut at 300mm x 2.4m. To create the immediate image to flicker, the installations were sliced and placed on angles. Then the mirrors were simply bouncing off each other, creating so many reflections from so many sources that you could not make out the image, hence the distortion. The installations needed to be light enough to be carried and moved around, complete enough to be able to save time during bump in and out and sturdy enough to free stand. Many concepts were made and scrapped because they were too heavy, too flimsy or simply not quite right until we finally worked out the best possible solution. The entire project took exactly two weeks – the concept was determined on the 19th of April and the show was the 3rd of May. I was very proud when I saw and heard people’s reactions to the set. There was no wiping the smile off my face.
Apart from a construction and shop fit-out point of view, the other major fashion project I have been involved in outside of Christopher Esber is the Bec&Bridge Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia show. Trademark was responsible for constructing the large 6m wide x 4.8m high backdrop and completely covering the wall in trellis, making it ready for the beautiful floral enhancement. These walls were reused for Christopher’s show and were covered in mirrored Perspex instead of trellis.
Due to the time constraints for bumping in and out before and after shows, we had to come up with a system that required little time and effort to erect and dismantle. It needed to be small enough to be able to transport, light enough to be carried in and ready enough to simply drop and go. When you are talking about a 6m x 4.8m wall, it can be difficult.
We opted to split the wall into five separate panels of 1.2m wide x 4.8m high. We constructed the frame of each panel using heavy duty steel stud due to its excellent strength and light weight. The framing was then sheeted with 3mm MDF which was glued, screwed and then painted. The whole process from procurement to completion took one day. These panels could be easily carried by two people and needed minimal work onsite for the bump in. All that needed to be done on site was to fix the panels together, stand the wall up, brace and secure it and apply the trellis, which took about one and a half hours.
I’m passionate about working on creative projects, within the realm of runway. I’m also currently collaborating with retail stores creating an individualised environment suited to their atheistic that will work with their season to season buys.
