Glynis Traill-Nash is one of Australia’s most respected writers and commentators on fashion. She spent years as Fashion Editor at The Australian, travelling the world to haute couture shows and getting to know and understand the world’s top designers.
She’s continued on writing for a variety of publications and hosts the popular podcast In Fashion. Throughout her career she’s also led a double life, spending late nights singing in jazz bars and exploring a deep love of music.
At this year’s Perth International Cabaret Festival, she’s taking a plunge and delivering the world premiere of her show In These Shoes which will be Downstairs at The Maj on June 12 and 13.
We agree to meet for a coffee in a cosy café in Subiaco, the ground outside filled with puddles from a deluge of overnight rain. Stepping into the sanctuary of indoors Glynis Traill-Nash is instantly recognisable with her bold dark red hair. Her clothes in a similar hue.
Vivacious and immediately engaging she admits it’s odd to be the one being interviewed after a long career of asking the questions.
Earlier in the morning I’d been perplexed about what to wear to our rendezvous. If fashion is a language I’m far from fluent. While I would have loved to have arrived in a bold suit or daring cape, I found myself let down as I looked around my walk-in-wardrobe.
Unsurprisingly only my clothes were hanging there. No suits, bold or otherwise. Alas no capes. I opt to step-it-up from my usual jeans and t-shirt to some olive trousers, a white linen shirt, a new grey jumper and brown boots. Seasonally autumnal.
As we chat over coffee, I say to Traill-Nash the obvious question would be what’s it like having this double life of fashion writer and jazz chanteuse, but in reality, we should be asking why is that we expect everyone to fit neatly aligned boxes?
“Why do we have to fit into one pair of shoes?” Traill-Nash responds. “I was a singer and actor before I was a fashion writer. That was my passion.”
Originally hailing from Kelmscott, after studying a double major in French and English at UWA, Traill-Nash headed to London to fulfill her dream of singing jazz. While she sang in clubs at night, during the day she had the obligatory ‘day job’, working in publishing.
“I was a sub-editor in magazines. Some really awful magazines, some really boring magazines.” she recalls. “I always had the day job, and then I was singing at night.”
Today she says her friends fall into two camps. Those who have known her the longest are relieved to see she’s finally embracing being a performer and fulfilling her long held ambition.
“Whereas people that know me from fashion, when they find out that I sing they’re like, ‘Really?’. Then often they’ll come to a gig out of sheer curiosity and they’re saying, ‘We should probably support her’, and then they come away and they go, ‘Oh – you actually can sing!'”
As the date of her big premiere comes closer Traill-Nash has been rehearsing her new show and getting ready for the spotlight.
“The idea for the show has been in my head for a while. I’ve gotten it out of head and into the script, and now we’re getting it onto the stage, which is a completely different thing.”
“I’m still rewriting it as I try to memorise it. I think about the question, ‘what do people want to know?'”
The show will see the writer sharing stories from her journey through the world of fashion. She promises there will be some name dropping and tantalising tales. The musical choices also form part of the narrative, and an eclectic range of songs with references to fashion are used in the show.
“It’s a great mix of songs, they’ll be some absolute crowd favourites I would think, some may have been reworded, but there will also be some that people might not know.” Traill-Nash revealed.
At the launch of the festival in April Glynis Traill-Nash gave a sneak peak of her show performing the little-known tune Style is Coming Back in Style, originally recorded by Jon Pizzarelli.
She shares the song actually appears under the opening credits of the 1994 Robert Altman film Prêt-à -Porter, it’s just one of the tunes that has been tracked down through research into music that also mentions fashion.
During her writing career Traill-Nash spent a lot of time focusing on the haute couture shows rather than the more plentiful ready-to-wear realm. She noticed that few Australian writers were focusing on the high-end of fashion.
“They’re extravagant and the most visually exciting.” she said. “There’s not as many of them. It’s just one week, so it’s not a schlep like ready-to-wear – where you have to see 10 or 15 shows in a day and you’re trying to get across New York in snow.”
She reveals that fashion shows are maybe not the action-packed moments we see depicted on films and television. Sure – there’s a flurry of excitement when big celebrity names arrive, but it’s usually followed by a lot of waiting around. Then the actual show usually only goes for about 8 minutes.
“It’s eight minutes then you’re out.” Traill-Nash said. “Sometimes they might go for up to twelve minutes if it’s very indulgent. People are always surprised by how short they are. They are a weird thing.”
As we chat, she reveals a great passion for creating conversations about how fashion can be more sustainable in both its business practices and its methodologies in creating clothes. She says she’s a natural introvert, but able to transform to an extrovert when she takes to the stage, and with a little persuading reveals her all-time favourite interview subject is French designer Jean-Paul Gaultier.
“I can’t tell you too many tales.” Glynis Traill-Nash says with a smile, “I have to save the best ones for the show.”
In These Shoes – Glynis Traill-Nash is at Downstairs at The Maj for the Perth International Cabaret Festival from 12-13 June. Tickets are on sale now.
