Alpha 60 is the Melbourne-based label with consistently clever design that strikes just the right balance between perfectly wearable and interesting. For as long as we can recall, it’s been a wardrobe staple made with love by brother, sister duo Georgie and Alex Cleary and their community of likeminded creatives. Today is their 10th birthday and tonight they celebrate with a special show at Melbourne’s MPavillion, which we urge you to check out if you can.
To celebrate we asked Alex and Georgie to interview each other about their highlights so far.
Alex: Hey Georgie.
Georgie: Hi Al .
Alex: So it’s ten years since we put our first collection together for a show at the NGA in Canberra, which was in conjunction with the Vivienne Westwood retrospective. Do you remember what happened then and what fell out from it? That was a turning point for us.
Georgie: Yeah I feel like we had a lucky break, we’d really only made a few t-shirts and shirts before that.
Alex: We held a mock funeral where our models came out in coffins accompanied by an opera singer. The hardest bit about the show was asking the models to get in the coffins. Anyway, that was how we launched and we’re excited to celebrate our 10th birthday with a show tonight too.
Georgie: At the beginning, in 2005 we had three aims: to open a shop, work full time and sell overseas. Straight after the Westwood show we did a trade show in Paris, got agents in Japan and UK and sold enough of the first range that we could open our first shop in Brunswick St in Melbourne. What’s been the biggest highlight of the last ten years for you?
Alex: I think every shop that we’ve opened has been a highlight. We have nine stores now and each has been equally exciting. And you?
Georgie: Definitely the stores also, it’s fun because we get to design spaces and make little Alpha lands, which is more than just the garments. For us it’s all about being creative in different ways; it’s nice to do stuff outside of garments. Have you got any favourite stories or favourite customers?
Alex: Our favourite customer was Patti Smith. She came into the store around the time we were making pop culture reference t-shirts. We had people like River Phoenix, Jean-Luc Godard, Anna Karina, Mick Jagger and Laura Palmer printed on the front. She was looking through them and all of a sudden she was like ‘how come I haven’t got a t-shirt?’ and we were like ‘oh…oh…give us a minute’. She happened to be on her way to Paris to do a reading for Jean-Luc Godard’s movie so she took one of our Godard t-shirts to wear and we sent her over her own, newly created Patti Smith t-shirt, which she gave to Godard to wear while she read. From then on we sold Patti Smith t-shirts, with her blessing, which was cool.
Georgie: I feel like this is a dorky question but do you have a celebrity highlight?
Alex: Yes, I was working in the store around the same time as one of the big festivals and all of Arcade Fire were in the shop. Then Björk’s band came in at the same time as well as James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem. Our store is called Alphaville and of the guys from Arcade Fire asked what song the band Alphaville sang? I was like ‘Forever Young‘ and James Murphy was like ‘no it wasn’t’ and I was like ‘yeah it is, I’ll play it’. Then he jumped behind the computer and started choosing some songs to put on and then the guy from Arcade Fire jumped in and started DJing too.
Georgie: And there are a lot of them in Arcade Fire – we were all standing around in the store listening to these guys play stuff from our iTunes. We were like, ‘this is awesome!’
Alex: Do you remember what our very first business was?
Georgie: Um, well I think I remember. We had lots. I was nine and you were 11. I feel like it was picking flowers and selling them. I think we stole flowers from Dad’s garden and sold them to people.
Alex: Yeah we’d sell all sorts of things, but I think the most profitable was the champagne we got from Dad’s shed, which we’d sell to the ladies walking around the nursery.We were always going to sell something.
Georgie: In ten years time what would be your ideal scenario?
Alex: I still want to be working in this office but we’d pimp it up a bit. I’d like to have shops in London, LA, New York and Tokyo, like 300 shops in Japan.
See what Alpha 60 did for their 10th birthday celebrations here.
Credits
Photography Briony Wright