Yahoo Lifestyle Easton Pearson To Close After 27 Years
Lydia Pearson and Pamela Easton are closing their label, Easton Pearson after 27 years. Photo: Instagram
It was 27 years ago when two designers from Brisbane, Pamela Easton and Lydia Pearson, joined forces to create Easton Pearson. The label went on to become an icon of the Australian fashion industry, showing in Paris, New York, India and Japan.
“In 1995, I’d just come back from living in London to be marie claire’s fashion director, and I went to see these girls with this new label called Easton Pearson,” recalls stylist, friend and collaborator Jane Roarty.
“I looked through their range, and right at the end there were these four fantastic dresses. I said, ‘Where did these come from? It’s all about these!’ I said, ‘I see enough linen classics, I want eccentric! ‘They said, ‘Well great, because this is really where out heart lies.’ We’ve worked together ever since.”
RELATED: The marie claire Team Reflect On Their Favourite Easton Pearson Moments
The marie claire team reflect on their favourite Easton Pearson moments. Photo: Getty Images
In the decades that followed, Easton Pearson would go on to become one of Australia’s most successful fashion labels, stocked everywhere from Bergdorf Goodmans in New York to Lane Crawford in Hong Kong. Yet today they have announced their label will close.
“They were appreciated globally,” recalls marie claire publisher Jackie Frank. “Probably even more so than here. I remember Browns [in London] embraced them early on. We used to go and see them in Paris in the showrooms.
“But they were always very understated,” says Frank. “It wasn’t about the glamour of the fashion world for them. It was about two great mates who came together in their fabulous collaboration and took it to the world.”
Click to shop Easton Pearson on StyledBy marie Claire now
She describes Easton and Pearson as “purists” who had a “distinct and vibrant style of their own”, and says of their decision to close their label: “The fashion world is moving so fast and they have chosen to stay pure to what they are about.”
Easton Pearson fans are a dedicated tribe, who treasure the brand’s carefully made collections, big on ruffles, embellishment and grin-inducing prints – all of which are unique.
marie claire’s current fashion director Jana Pokorny says, “They’ve always been my go-to brand for beautiful colour and print and joyous summer stories.”
Worn on the runway by the likes of Gemma Ward and Linda Evangelista, “If you have any pieces from 1996 to 2008, you’ve got some rare and special artisanal pieces - they really were so magnificently done,” says Roarty.
The marie claire team reflect on their favourite Easton Pearson moments. Photo: Getty Images
“Pamela and I made the decision [to shutter the label] quite a long time ago,” Pearson tells marie Claire. “We’ve each been working out how to look after our suppliers and staff, and also what we want to do next.”
In September, Pearson will launch an artists’ collective called Baroque Lab, working with sculptors, multimedia artists, photographers and makers on what she calls “experiments in creative living”. She is also teaching design students at QUT.
Easton will launch a new venture under her own name “based on modern artisanal craft” to create both fashion and homewares. There will be no seasonal collections, she says, “just pieces, delivered at my own pace”.
The pair remain best friends and say the reasons behind moving on are grounded in wanting more time to work individual projects, and being fed up with conventional fashion’s relentless pace. “Fast fashion doesn’t appeal to us,” says Eastman. “The brand could stay viable but at too high a price, by which I mean the price of the time you have to give to all the other stuff that surrounds the clothes when it comes to a modern fashion business.
“It’s a big investment of time and energy to work with artisans, and that was being pushed to the side by all the other things that take over, from social media to seasonal collections’ relentless pace.”
RELATED: Click through for the marie claire team's favourite Easton Pearson moments
