Fashion is a textural tongue. Fold and seam are the grapheme of the human form. Our silhouettes are status updates, our wardrobes a lexicon of speech and slang, style the diction that threads it all together.
But, as humans, we go straight past talk and inspire ourselves to sing. Do it well, and you could have everyone else singing your song… or at least humming along.
Song For The Mute is an emerging anthem in Australian menswear fashion whose tailored tune is infectious. They’ve only just released their third collection and already they’ve been named Australian Designer of the Year by Woolmark at L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival just gone.
‘We created the entire first collection (for AW10) without even having a name for the label,’ explained Melvin Tanaya on the phone from Sydney. Himself and childhood friend Lyna Ty are the team responsible for Song For The Mute, the first ever menswear brand to win LMFF Designer of the Year.
‘It’s all about self-empowerment, particularly coming from an Asian background where being creative is almost forbidden. So we have used the label as a chance to speak out for the people who aren’t able.’
In the space of roughly 18 months, what started as a side-project is now becoming a potential fulltime career for both Tanaya and Ty, even though they still currently both work second part-time jobs.
Things might change this month when the pair present at Singapore’s first ever Mens Fashion Week, where they have been nominated for The Young Designer of the Year Award.
So what is the Song For The Mute aesthetic?
‘It’s a label that is grounded in a conceptual space,’ Tanaya eluded. ‘We don’t want to be categorized as coming from one position or having one particular look.’
As such, each season hinges on a central fabric rather than a feel or direction. At current, AW11 – entitled Milieu I – experiments with merino wool, fusing masculine and feminine lines to create a drape and cocoon where the seams are twisted from the back of the garment to the front.
It’s a risky move: at times, the lines can create a curve to the shoulders that suggests a slight hunch from certain angles. But it’s this deliberate dark twist which is the strength of this season, form-fitting sacrificed to accentuate an architectural shape, a bold outer form.
The move captures the essence of AW11, which is a homage to Ty’s recently departed grandmother, the cocoon shapes a space of remembrance and healing, of dealing with the past while functioning through the present.
‘We always design the outerware first and create the rest of the garments by working in. It’s potentially an odd process, but it lets us know how the silhouette will look overall, allowing us to construct the detail of it.’
Long coats sweep the body’s length while sleeveless vests in leather, wool or an almost wetsuit material husk over voluminous shirts or loose knits, leggings, baggy pants and shorts rounding out the bottom half while deer skin leather scarves add a raw, vital sense of luxe.
The colours are moody and deliberate: black and oatmeal and softened by cream or made starker with gunmetal greys.
Come next season, SS11/12, and Song For The Mute will weave more colour into the palette when they present Milieu II, a moving on from grief to celebrate the memory of others in the function of the present. Shapes will return to accentuate the human form, loosening from the shoulders to create drapes over limbs and hips.
The central fabric is a linen that is deliberately washed in a juice mixed with charcoal and then sundried for an aged post-production effect, the whole look only achievable after three or four months.
Such attention to detail will carry through to the final collection, naturally.
‘People will love how we “play†next season, the sense of joy we’ll be capturing and conveying and giving to them.’
Until then, winter beckons with a dramatic certainty, Song For The Mute presenting a collection that resonates with nostalgia yet boldly directs you toward the future of men’s fashion in Australia.
Song For The Mute is available online exclusively through For-Tomorrow with a Perth stockist coming this September. To purchase visit www.f-t.com.au. To view the current and past collections, please visit www.songforthemute.com
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
