So it’s always refreshing to find young designers or collectives – such as the Trust Fun – with an enthusiastic and slightly subversive approach to life on a quest for innovatively pleasing products designed following unconventional techniques.
Founded by Australian illustrator and graphic designer Jonathan Zawada, his wife Annie and designer and art director Shane Sakkeus, the Trust Fun already gained quite a bit of attention thanks to its unique “fashion backstage comic book-meets-punky zine” Petit Mal!, irresistibly ironic fashion arithmetic blog Fashematics and more commercial yet equally exclusive products such as the “Rockmen” necklaces, gold chains with chunky pendants made out of colourful mineral rocks.
Yet the versatility of the scarves is not as important as their uniqueness: indeed behind each kaleidoscopic pattern there is a mathematically valid fractal created by entering a series of numbers and equations into a computer. Being based upon a completely unique equation, the intricate and futuristic patterns of the scarves, their sharp contrasts of bold and bright colours, combination of forms and carefully structured details can’t be replicated.
Well done to the Trust Fun then for diversifying their work, sending the wearers’ senses into overload and striving to push fashion forward. Now there is only one dilemma left: how will you be wearing your Glory Scarf?
Jonathan Zawada: I didn't really study art or design at all, I dropped out after just 6 months of a university degree to work full time at a terrible little web design company. Before that I had worked part time jobs in animation and sold my own hand made T-shirts at school. In the years since uni I had my own little design/creative agency with a couple of partners for a few years but, for the last 7 years or so, I've just been working on my own which really has been a dream come true. Shane studied design at Swinburne University of Technology in Victoria but, like the superman that he is, he spent a lot of his time on the job, working for different design companies while completing his degree. I'm led to believe he achieved the highest ever score for his thesis on why design is pointless.
Q: Do you prefer working as artist, graphic or fashion designer?
Jonathan Zawada: I prefer working as all three, depending on my mood. I tend to get bored pretty easily so changing between different disciplines helps to keep me interested in each one in turn. I know Shane would say that he didn’t think anything we did was art, and I guess I would have to agree. We think of a lot of what we do as just simply making things that are fun and interesting for us to make, what category they slot into after we've made them isn't really up to us.
Jonathan Zawada: At this point, for me, probably Shane and of course my wife Annie. It’s good being in Australia because there is fairly little to get influenced by and we really feel as though we have complete freedom in what we do. I don't think we really have any goals or idols - maybe the closest thing would be the book How To Be Free by Tom Hodgkinson.
Q: When did you launch your scarf project?
Jonathan Zawada: We started making our own hand-dyed silk scarves about 3 or 4 years ago. It really just began as something that Shane and I wanted to experiment with. I guess it was a sort of reaction to the design work we were doing for fashion labels that seemed very repetitive and lacking in any sort of experimentation.
Q: What inspired the colourful designs on the scarves?
Jonathan Zawada: Our current range of scarves is derived from mathematical fractals. Basically we wanted to fully utilize the process of digital printing whereby every item can be completely unique. The mathematical structure of fractals is also very closely linked to what we saw happening when we were hand dying scarves - the way the inks mixed and interacted. The process of producing the digital fractal scarves is really very much like a kind of digital tie-dying - kind of neo-folk-DIY!
Q: How would you describe your scarves?
Jonathan Zawada: A universe in a handkerchief.
Jonathan Zawada: We would love to! Shane actually does all of the prints for Josh Goot and I’ve done a lot of prints for other Australian labels like Ksubi and Tina Kalivas in the past. The opportunity to do something more collaborative, more as equals would be thoroughly welcomed though.
Q: Are there any plans to launch more accessories in the future?
Jonathan Zawada: We’ve actually just finished sampling a leather/canvas handbag that utilizes the silk scarves and that’s what we’ve been trying to get orders for while we’ve been in London. Hopefully we can get enough interest to be able to put them into production. We’re very conscious of not growing too quickly, our number one priority is to never get into debt and to always pay our makers on time - something which seems to rarely happen in the fashion business.
Q: What are you working on at present?
Jonathan Zawada: We’re currently working on a small project with the British Fashion Council and it looks like there is an opportunity to do something with Topshop in London in the pipeline. Other than that Shane and I have a bunch of our own personal work and projects that are always ticking over. Once I land back in Sydney I fear I’m going to be buried under a ton of work that I have avoided whilst being away for the past week!
Q: What are your future plans?
Jonathan Zawada: We tend not to plan very much at all, which has been both a blessing and a curse. Hopefully we’ll be able to get more involved with London Fashion Week, especially with projects like our Petit Mal! backstage comic and maybe eventually evolve our Trust Fun label incrementally more each season - possibly with some upcoming jewellery and maybe even swimwear.
Trust Fun’s Glory Scarves are available from Liberty in London, and Poepke, Violent Green and Alice Euphemia in Australia. Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
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