Introducing Lotte Schwerdtfeger, a multi-disciplinary artist and ceramicist living between Dja Dja Wurrung country (Castlemaine) and Tandanya (Adelaide). Lotte creates ceramic vessels which are rooted in the natural world — sometimes functional, sometimes not. Her experiments with materials, life cycles, and observations of her world inform a sense of play into her process. As a previous resident of our pop-up store in our Castlemaine studio, we are delighted to release a selection of Lotte’s magical pieces available to purchase here through FME.

Could you walk us through your most treasured daily ritual? 
Waking up to my budgie roommates. They live on a tree in our room and sometimes land on my pillow to see if I have breakfast for them. I have a roadside bushwalk to the bus stop each morning. Often it seems like a chore when it’s four degrees or hailing, but it’s always a delightful time of day, stepping into the clear air, high on a hill, on Kaurna country.

Has the concept of ‘home’ changed for you since your recent interstate move? What is an essential element of your home that you couldn’t be without? I left my sweetheart at home in Victoria while I work in South Australia. Being separate has made my new home life feel liminal. While I can survive being apart, it would be sweeter to do the gardening together. My brother, the birds and I live in a house with a rambling garden and many eccentricities. It sometimes feels like camping. I spend most of the time working in my studio, my third home. It is a great privilege to have so many places that feel like home to me. 

How does your creative practice influence your day-to-day life and rhythm?

At the moment my creative practice is my whole day-to-day. I’ve been full time in the studio experimenting, consolidating my skills, and working in production and teaching.  The rhythm of researching, playing and executing a project is everything. 

What do you collect?

I used to collect everything including disheveled lost pet posters, phrases I liked and decorative animals made of shells glued together. Collecting is a big part of my practice as a way of beginning research, but also how I source materials from the land and from what others have discarded. I’ve amassed a satisfying collection of artworks and handmade ceramic tableware made by friends and colleagues. These objects are like a diary of sweet reminiscences.

Creative Muse: Lotte Schwerdtfeger

IG: @lotteschwerdtfeger

Wearing: FME Apparel Pinstripe Lennox Shirt

Photography: Lotte Schwerdtfeger

Meet the creative cook, mother of two and all round goddess, Nartchanok Jansri McHaffie. The woman behind Good Thaimes - a home style cooking business that pops up everywhere from Castlemaine to Cam's Cafe in Abbotsford. We had the pleasure of photographing Nok and learning a bit more about her magic.

Could you walk us through your most treasured daily ritual? I love to start the day with cooking and end with cooking. Taking time to cook every meal and share it with family is such an immediate and nourishing experience for me.

What does the concept of 'home' look like to you?
Home is my mothers house in Thailand but since living here, my partner and I have had the chance to create a very warm and colourful place to rest and create amongst such a supportive community in Castlemaine.

What is a must-have dish or creative element that you prepare when hosting a dinner party?
If I have a party with friends I love to cook a hotpot. Laying all the ingredients out and allowing guests to cook what they like in the pot is such a fun way to mingle and share awareness with others. 

What do you collect?
I collect everything to do with cooking but my favourite thing to collect is ceramics from Doi Din Daeng in Chiang Rai. It's the studio of Thailand's most respected ceramicist Somluk Pantiboon and his work is so earthy and beautiful. We also have many Lotte Schwerdtfeger ceramics who is a local artist and my bff.

Who is your dream creative collaborator and why? I would love to work with my mum. She gave me my taste and developed my skills in our backyard kitchen. I'd love her to come over here and do some events together.

Creative Muse: Nartchanok Jansri McHaffie
Good Thaimes
Ig: @good_thaimes
Photography: Maddy Maeve @maddymaeve
Special thanks to: @eveofthefaeries for allowing us to shoot in her beautiful home on Dja Dja Wurrung country .

Rose Anna Jan-Gee Louey, is a Chinese Australian artist who explores magic in the real. With a background in Printmaking at the Victorian College of the Arts; she has continued her love of monochromatic greyscale with graphite on paper and more recently, painting. Rose brought our SS2022 Collection to life across the ODE Collective front window this week. A rolling, swirling oceanic fantasy that encapsulates 'The Sweet Life' Collection SS2022.

Name/Nicknames:

Rose Anna Jan-Gee Louey (only my closest friends call me Lou)

Occupation(s)Interests:

Mother to three, Artist (painter) and Model (and sometimes I teach Yoga, but not often)

Favourite scent:

Santa Maria Novella Melograno, mixed with the Herbe pheromone Activator and some rose water.

Most precious object/item that you own and why:

The friendship ring my dad gave to my mum when they were 14. It is engraved with their names. It isn't valuable but it is irreplaceable.

Please recommend a song to create to:

Sebastian Tellier 'La Ritournelle'. This definitely flips the emotion in my stomach.

Please recommend a song to cut loose to:

The Roots 'The Seed 2.0', is still the one.

Share a childhood memory with us:

Crushing flowers in the garden with my sister Grace and selling our 'perfume' all over the neighbourhood. I think we mixed it with glitter and water and our mum bought lots of tiny vials for us to put them in. 

When do you feel most beautiful?

When I was little, it was when I washed my face hard with a flannel and it made my cheeks go pink. I still like the after effects now of a clean face with warm cheeks. 

A favourite quote:

You’re still going to get criticised, so you might as well do whatever the fuck you want.

— Kathleen Hanna

Which piece from the FME collection feels most YOU and how would you style it:
Usually I wear vintage margiela- something I have collected since I was 20 years old. I then throw this together with beautiful basics- I really love the FME baby blue tank and teeshirt and would wear this with my brown long MM skirt and white tabis, or some baggy jeans and a really old rick owens leather jacket. If I feel sassy I would wear the ballet pink FME giant scrunchie with a black MM dress and cowboy boots.

What does 'The Sweet Life' evoke for you:

This poem:

One grand boulevard with trees

with one grand cafe in the sun

with strong black coffee in very small cups.

One not necessarily very beautiful

man or woman who loves you.

One fine day.

— Recipe For Happiness In Khabarovsk Or Any Place, Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Artist: Rose Anna Jan-Gee Louey
Website: https://roselouey.com/
Ig: @rosealouey
Photography: Maddy Maeve @maddymaeve
Interview: Albee @albeez
Special thanks to: Brodie and Fox for assisting

With the challenges of a hard-lockdown in Melbourne and little chance of traveling in the foreseeable future, it meant finding creative ways to photograph our new collection.

Our idea was to live vicariously through our clothing, and reconnect with a destination full of fascination and nostalgia. Reaching out to friends abroad, we sent our favourite pieces to NYC to spend an afternoon with photographer Shana Jade Trajanoska and mega muse Cassandra Mayela.

The Sisterhood of the Travelling Clothes gives new life to our work, seeking connection and inspiration from friends in places far from our reach, but close to our hearts.

Credits

Photographer: Shana Jade Trajanoska

Model: Cassandra Mayela

Special thanks: Anna Mackenzie

Because it’s a time of celebration, we’d like to celebrate you, the people that have supported us over the years.

Earlier this month, on a crisp December morning, accompanied by a handful of our lovely regulars and champagne mimosas, we celebrated eight years of FME Apparel. From buying jumpers from Maddy at Camberwell Market all those years ago, to wearing our designs to their weddings, it’s these connections with our customers that have made us who we are.

We are not a faceless brand. We love to hear your stories and discover why our clothing is meaningful to you. Lifting each other up, sharing, and collaborating has always been—and will always be—at the core of what we do, so thank you for being part of our story, however big or small. Here’s to an incredible 2020!

People can fall into our lives at just the right time, and it can feel like some type of divine magic is at work. Happenstance or synchronicity: it’s these connections that enrich our lives and foster our creativity.

FME Apparel's AW19 collection, Serendipity, is a meditation on these moments, and this Queen’s Birthday weekend we say 'No, thanks!’ to the monarchy and ‘Yes, please!' to the sisterhood of women who provide us with direction and inspiration.

There’s Manisha Anjalia writer, performer and dream archivist. Musician, DJ and producer at Next Wave and Melbourne Fringe, Kalyani Mumtaz. Awhina Anima, a human geography student and self-proclaimed bedroom dancer. Italian ex-pat Sara Stavrideswho manages Mark Douglass Design, and finally, body worker and artist, Brooke Yallop.

Together, they remind us of the power of women and the beauty of connectivity.

These are our muses.

These are the Queens that we choose to celebrate.

Kalyani Mumtaz @kalyanimumtaz .

Kalyani Mumtaz is a Trawlwoolway artist, curator, and community arts worker, living in so-called Melbourne on Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri Lands. Mumtaz is a Producer at @next_wave and @melbfringe and is a core member of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts collective, @this_mob. Kalyani currently performs music as a solo artist, and recently released an EP ‘a leaf a flower’, with her project @kalyani.and.isha. Kalyani’s work as an artist and curator centres truth and responsibility.

"I create because my mother taught me that to create is to heal yourself. I create because it makes me feel better and gives me a reason to keep going. I create to imagine my self into existence. I create because I am a conduit of my Ancestors. I create because there is so much work to be done."

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Manisha Anjali @manishaanjali .

Manisha is a writer, performer and dream archivist. She is the author of Sugar Kane Woman (Witchcraft Press, 2016). Manisha is the creator of Neptune, an audio project documenting dreams, hallucinations and visions of artists and writers. She is the Poetry Editor at The Lifted Brow and is currently working LIZARD, a collection of poems set in the animal realm of the afterlife.

“I create because I want to have intimacy with the whole world. I want to communicate in the language of dreams. I work with illusions, delusions, mirrors and shadows. I want to break through the fabric of reality and re-order time. Dreaming is a form of storytelling and travel. Everything I do in writing and performance is expression of my spirit. This is the poet’s inner world. It is made of fire, water, flowers and reptiles.” .
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Brooke Yallop @easy_over_

Brooke is an artist and Body worker specialising in Pilates and Barre. She believes movement is the most inherent form of communication and a means of heightening body awareness and connection.

“I create because it is the way in which I acknowledge every part of my being. It is the way I relate to the world, channel energy and process emotion. My personal practice is my purest form of self expression and honours my physical, emotional and spiritual self in their entirety.”

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The full shoot is viewable over at Ladies of Leisure. Special thanks to all the creatives involved.

Muses: Awhina Anima, Brooke Yallop, Kalyani Mumtaz, 
Manisha Anjali, Sara Stavrides
Photography: Maddy Maeve
Art Direction: Laura Albee Barton
Words: Cait Emma Burke
Assistant: Rebecca Ashby

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This season, a duet of happenstance and abstract musings find form in timeless pieces designed to elevate and inspire the everyday. Featuring an autumnal palette of pumpkin, ruby, forest green and biscuit, merged with the conscious detailing of seashell buttons, gathered sleeves and drawstring finishings.

A rich tapestry of velvets, wool gauze, houndstooth and classic linens, combine to embed Serendipity with graceful tactility; memories for the skin and the eye.

www.fmeapparel.com.au/shop

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