Back in fashion

Melbourne fashion maven Mary Lipshut has lifted the lid on a treasure-trove of vintage never-been-worn European fashion. Kieren Charteris reports.

Elegant Versace silk gowns press shoulder-to-shoulder with space-age Courrèges acrylic jumpsuits; bold Pucci prints jostle soft Missoni knits. There are more designer labels crowded into the room than at an invitation-only Milan catwalk show, but there is just one woman – Mary Lipshut.

The still-youthful 82-year-old owns every single one of the many thousand fabulous vintage frocks, amassed over a career that’s spanned four decades and given rise to Meredith clothing, known throughout Australia and New Zealand for its classic affordable fashions.

“Fashion’s been the love of my life. I think even my husband Phillip understood that,” Mary jokes. “That Imelda Marcos woman may have had her shoes but I have it all – shoes, bags, jewellery, suits, dresses – the lot.”

Mary was born into the rag trade – her father was Morris Plotkin, the elastic fabric tycoon of the pre-Lycra days – but her passion for fashion didn’t really take hold until she was in her thirties. “As a girl, I dreamed of being a research scientist,” Mary confides, leaning
forward in her chair conspiratorially.

“I was never happier than I was in front of a microscope!” But Cupid intervened when she met Phillip Lipshut and married him at age 20. She gave up her tertiary studies to become a devoted wife and, in due course, full-time mother to her three sons – Alan, now 60, Peter, 57, and David, 51. “It was the role expected of young women at the time, and I have absolutely no regrets, but after ten happy years and three darling boys, I started to want something more; something that was mine alone. Originally I wanted to go back to science, but it would have meant starting my degree all over again, and I just couldn’t face that.”

It was a seemingly ordinary overseas business trip with her husband in 1962 that sparked what was to become an enduring and all-consuming passion for Mary. “Phillip was in textiles and when I was doing the rounds of the manufacturers with him in Hong Kong,
I saw these three gorgeous beaded and embroidered knit tops. I was transfixed; I’d never seen anything so beautifully detailed and intricate before. I was asking Phillip why we couldn’t get them at home; why we had to be content with the same old thing, when the idea came to me: I could start bringing them into Australia as a little hobby.”

Upon her return to Melbourne, Mary went into business with her elder sister, Edith. They combined their names to form the company Meredith and operated from Mary’s rumpus room in her home in Toorak, Melbourne, importing and then manufacturing knitwear from Hong Kong. Inspired by trendsetting Australian couturier Hal Ludlow, they also used their father’s fabrics to make a range of matching stretch pants, which they called ‘Pantastics’. “It was an exciting time,” Mary recalls, her eyes lighting up. “Lifestyles had changed and the days of tailored suits and ball gowns for women were over. We were pioneering a never-seen-before look.”

Department store Myer Emporium liked what it saw and bought a lot of knitwear from Mary; so much so that when she embarked on a world trip with Phillip in 1966, she was asked to purchase a knitwear collection for the store from every country she visited. She acquired ponchos in Mexico and knit pantsuits in Los Angeles, but it was in Florence where Mary struck gold, being introduced by her Italian export agent into the elite inner circle of the city’s burgeoning fashion and arts scene.

A patchwork of faded photographs pinned to her office wall is testament to the longstanding business relationships and personal friendships Mary forged with such legendary fashion names as designers Ottavio (Tai) and Rosita Missoni, Gianni Versace, Emilio Pucci, Mariuccia Mandelli of Krizia, as well as famous fashion commentators such as Anna Piaggi and Vern Lambert.

“Gianni was a brilliant designer and such a gentleman,” Mary says fondly with a nod to a signed black-and-white portrait of the ruggedly handsome bearded Italian and his dog. “I met him many times over the years and he always remembered to ask after my family back home. As for his family, I never warmed to his brother Santo, and his sister Donatella; well, Gianni’s clothes were much more elegant in those early days but after Donatella started having an influence, it all became so… flashy and I stopped buying it.”

During the late 1960s and 1970s Meredith became the sole Australian distributor for most of Europe’s leading fashion houses, adding such names as André Courrèges and Roberta di Camerino to its ever-expanding range, which was stocked by the groundbreaking The Internationals Department at Myer and Innovation at the old Georges department store. Still, not all her acquisitions met with approval from local buyers. “I bought a stunning halter top with matching flares in emerald and lime Lurex from Tai Missoni himself, but in Melbourne I was told I couldn’t mix those greens or have a top cut away from the arms like that.” The outfit is now housed in the National Gallery of Victoria.

Disagreements like that led her and Edith to open boutiques in Melbourne’s prestigious South Yarra – “Tempo, for the dressier European labels, including Genny, Callaghan and Complice, and Sportempo, for Courrèges, Italian knitwear and the sportier lines such as Gaston Jaunet.”

“We couldn’t believe the positive response from customers. And every fashion editor in town was knocking on our door as well.” Mary herself acquired a formidable collection of European ready-to-wear. “Everybody expected me to wear something new every time I went out, so who was I to disappoint them?” she smiles. “And of course, when I visited Gianni I had to wear Versace, when I saw Tai and Rosita I had to wear Missoni, Courrèges for Courrèges, and so on. I was getting new outfits all the time.

“I had too many favourites to mention. I loved Armani and Valentino for their elegance; Courrèges is wonderful and Missoni’s strong point was its variety, but I think Versace was a creative genius. And at the time I absolutely adored the Midi look. Everything had to match; it was a complete look. It flopped but I loved it.”

In a move that was to prove fortuitous, Mary decided to set aside items from each collection for the Meredith archives. But the largest additions to her stockpile were completely out of her control. The first was precipitated by the French Government’s controversial atomic tests in the Pacific. Wharfies refused to handle any French imports and Mary found herself with two seasons’ worth of Courrèges cropped jackets, jumpsuits and mini dresses that she couldn’t bring ashore; the ship was turned back to France. “It took me two years to finally receive that shipment. It was a terrible time for importers,” Mary sighs. By the time the wharfies situation was resolved, the fashions were no longer in vogue and so were stored away.

Not long after, a disagreement with a fashion executive at Myer led to the sudden closing of The Internationals Department and Mary was forced to divert another huge shipment of designer clothes to the same warehouse. “The next time I was in Milan I asked Anna Piaggi what I should do with the unsold stock. She told me to pack it away because all over the world, people were starting to collect fashion, museums were starting to open fashion galleries, and vintage would become more and more important.

“Anna was amazing; she was always the first person to recognise the next big thing. Even all that time ago, she could see this vintage thing coming. So I put the clothes away and, I have to admit, I put them to the back of my mind. The knitwear side of the business was getting bigger and bigger each season, so most of my attention was on that. Edith eventually bowed out, my other sister Rae came on board as a fashion consultant, and Phillip and the boys pitched in more.”

In 1985 Meredith decided to concentrate on its knitwear collection and stopped importing ready-to-wear collections from Europe. Between 1986 and 1989 the company opened more retail stores and expanded wholesale distribution throughout Australia and into New Zealand. In 1995, Mary handed the reins to her middle son Peter, and prepared to spend her retirement spoiling her six grandchildren – Mark, now 26, Sally, 23, Emma, 22, Jenna, 21, Rebecca, 20, and Andrew, 19 – doing charity work and indulging her other passions “for bridge and for chocolate; I’m a chocoholic!”

“It had been a good trip. The fashion business had brought me wonderful friends, wonderful experiences. I’ve chatted to Frank Sinatra – even if it was only on the telephone. And I would have met the Beatles in India in the 1960s if it hadn’t been for a last-minute change of plans. I’d had the best of both worlds – all the excitement of working in Europe and a wonderful family life in Melbourne – but I was ready for a break.”

As it turned out, Mary’s retirement was rather short-lived. “Our old warehouse was on land urgently needed by a property developer to complete a billion-dollar project. The following year he made my son Alan, Meredith’s finance director, an offer he couldn’t refuse – on the condition we move out in ten days. I said it was impossible; I wanted to have a moving sale, but of course the boys overruled me,” Mary says with a rueful smile.

“It was absolute chaos. In the past we’d employed university students to move boxes and they’d stacked some against the wall with the labels hidden. We thought they were empty; we didn’t have a clue what was in them until we finally started unpacking at our new premises.”

That’s when the size of the treasure-trove came to light – the ill-fated Courrèges and Myer shipments, still in their original packaging; plus showroom samples, forgotten lay-bys and unsold stock that had accumulated since the 1960s. “That’s where my collection is unique,” Mary explains, “A lot of vintage clothing is in fact second-hand, even the top designer items. You can see and feel the accumulated years of use. Sometimes you can even smell it, underneath the scent of mothballs. But I’ve got Missoni, Versace, Pucci, Krizia, Armani – more than twenty-five different designers – that have never been worn. They are brand new.”

It didn’t take Mary long to decide to come out of retirement and open a showroom, ML Vintage. “Vern Lambert always told me you should grab opportunities as they arise, so I did. Once, I might have kept it as a private collection, but not now, because of my age. You can’t hoard everything forever,” she says, “and there’s so much here that it will take me twenty years to sell it all.”

To that end, Mary has painstakingly photographed and catalogued her entire range. “I may be an old lady, but I’m on the computer. Sometimes I forget what I did yesterday, but I know every single item we have here! If I say this is an original Missoni, then that’s exactly what it is,” she says, holding up a tiny striped top by way of example, before pausing to reflect, “Everyone was smaller back then. That’s the only bad thing about Missoni silk; it clings. Although if I lose a few pounds, I can still fit into most of my old clothes...”

ML Vintage garments range in price from $20 accessories to a Walter Albini white satin cocktail coat recently valued at $10,000. But many Courrèges and Missoni items are priced from $250 to $400, still relatively cheap for what are increasingly regarded as museum pieces.

Indeed, some of Mary’s collection has ended up in museums, both in Australia and abroad. “The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston bought two Missonis and a Versace. And of course I donated all my personal wardrobe, including my trousseau, to the National Gallery of Victoria here in Melbourne.”

As for private buyers, Mary has a lot of interest from overseas, especially America, but as the passion for vintage fashion spreads, more and more Australians are visiting her appointment-only showroom in South Yarra. “It gives me great pleasure because otherwise young people my grandchildren’s age wouldn’t get to see these wonderful clothes. I get models, stylists, fashion students, designers, even bridal parties; people who have a love of fashion but also understand quality.”

“Everything designed in those days was in good taste. When I see some of the things designers are putting together today, it just turns me off. I can’t stand those jeans that show your bum when you bend over. Girls wear them because they want to stand out. Well, if they dressed elegantly, they’d be certain to stand out!”

Coco Chanel coined the phrase, Yves St Laurent adapted it and Mary Lipshut lives by it: “Fashion fades but style is eternal.”

Visit ML Vintage

ML Vintage’s new boutique is located 7 Almeida Crescent, South Yarra, Melbourne; call (03) 9826 6789, or visit www.mlvintage.com.

 

Words: Kieren Charteris. Photography: Andrew Lehmann. Hair & Make-up: Belinda Zollo.