Being absorbed in a world of make-believe transforms its youthful participants. Putting on one of Megan Park’s beaded and embroidered dresses holds the same potential. A weekend afternoon engaged in playing dress-up from a wardrobe full of Megan Park’s creations can easily turn into an evening’s indulgence that is immune to distraction.

image: Megan Park a/w 2006-7 www.meganpark.co.uk

Ms. Park comes from a background similar to my own in that she was raised in a rural farming community. Growing up in this environment forces us to engineer our own entertainment. For those with a special resolve like Ms. Park, daydreams and the desire to participate in city life halfway around the globe become so obstinate that they are willed into being. An isolated rural childhood has the power to generate visions of broader horizons as well as foster the ingenuity necessary to discover them.

image: Megan Park a/w 2006-7 www.meganpark.co.uk

image: Megan Park a/w 2006-7 www.meganpark.co.uk

Currently Ms. Park lives and operates her business out of London and spends three months of every year working closely with her talented staff in India. In an interview I conducted with her this past week she says that, “…together we work very closely, with their hands realizing my designs…Usually the results are even better than what was imagined.” Paying wages that match her staff’s skill level demonstrates Ms. Park’s willingness to not only maintain the highest quality of her garments, but also her employees’ quality of life.

image: Megan Park a/w 2006-7 www.meganpark.co.uk

image: Megan Park a/w 2006-7 www.meganpark.co.uk

image: Megan Park a/w 2006-7 www.meganpark.co.uk

image: Megan Park a/w 2006-7 www.meganpark.co.uk

Unique, hand-sewn details such as “graphite jet beaded silk” and “saffron acid bead georgette” that are incorporated into Ms. Park’s a/w 2006-7 collection appeals to our own sense of inherent uniqueness. She points out that, “Whilst there are only a few stitches to know, it is infinite what can be achieved”. Recent trends suggest that we are increasingly attracted to a time-worn look, as with today’s denim rage. The original appeal of distressed denim was that our favorite pair had been through countless experiences with us. We could recount how rips and stains occurred just as we would flip through the photos of a scrapbook. Today’s insatiable trend for artificially aged denim produced by Chinese labor and assembly-line abrasive agents renders our city sidewalks into conveyer belts of consumer blandness. Inspecting garments such as Ms. Park’s closely reveals a simple truth: it takes time to affect such a personal touch.

image: Megan Park a/w 2006-7 www.meganpark.co.uk

image: Megan Park a/w 2006-7 www.meganpark.co.uk

Manufacturing the illusion of time-worn garments is a trend, and eventually the pendulum will swing the other way. That is why designers such as Megan Park will endure. Her dyes are turned out by one man’s memory. The embroidery for her collections are produced by kurigers in India whose art is not simply a pastime, but absorbed into a way of life characterized by centuries of collective experience. The infinite variation achieved by only a few stitches is the hallmark of hand-sewn artistry and also Ms. Park’s aesthetic. “I look very much towards the art and techniques of old but try to reinterpret in a way which is right for now and for my own collection.”

image: Megan Park a/w 2006-7 www.meganpark.co.uk

Ms. Park executed on her childhood dreams. As a girl growing up in rural Victoria, Australia she made clothes to dress her play dolls using fabric from her mother’s sewing room. Today she makes clothes to dress real dolls all over the world.