CATHERINE MARTIN

Sharing a love of Australian natural wonders with the RWB designers, Academy Award-winning costume designer and creative all-rounder Catherine Martin is a key champion of the duo’s work. AP & LS: “Catherine, you reference Australiana in subtle (and not so subtle) hints in your work. This is something we have become known for as well. What keeps you coming back to Australian iconography? Do you have any thoughts on why many Aussies in the industry avoid embracing their heritage?” CM: “I can’t speak to others people’s feelings or perspectives about how they use their heritage or influences in their work but I certainly feel that where I come from has had an absolutely indelible effect on who I am as a person, how I view the world and how I create work. “I am half French and half Australian. My father is Australian and I was simultaneously brought up with my Australian grandmother, who celebrated Australia and all of the iconography of Australia. She appreciated the flora, the fauna and also the outback struggles that she had lived as a child and the heroism of our founding fathers living in such a harsh country. “It was that clashing of Australian history and tradition with the history and decorative traditions of French culture, the old and new world clashing together that created a very interesting creative amalgam for me. “I think that we live in an extraordinary country with the most awesome and peculiar animals and wild flowers. Who would have known that Tasmania would be a place where someone hiking in the wilderness would find the Wollemi pine, one of the world’s prehistoric trees. This unusualness consistently continues to excite me.”