Mary Shackman, artist
Dec 23rd, 2007 by swtesimon
Mary Shackman (b.1945) is an important Australian textile designer and artist. For over forty years Mary Shackman’s textile designs have been used by some of Australia’s key fashion designers and manufacturer’s from Sportsgirl, Carla Zampatti, John J Hilton, Kenneth Pirrie and Mark & Geoffrey in the 1960s and 1970s to Nicola Finetti and Anthony Kendal in the 2000s.
Shackman describes her style as Bohemian and artistic and this collection of clothing and textiles exemplifies the versatility of Mary Shackman’s designs from the striking large scale patterns and bright colours of her prints in the 1960s and the more free form hippy mood of her hand painted clothing in the 1970s to the dramatic painterly quality of her more recent designs for Anthony Kendals ‘Thys Collective’.
Shackman’s textile designs from the 1960s and 1970s are particularly significant, reflecting a period when Australian fashion manufacturers and designers were using the work of local textile designers rather than sourcing all their materials from overseas or large textile manufacturers.
Mary Shackman is equally interesting for the way she has moved across the fashion and social spectrum working as a textile designer; modelling for fashion magazines, the Fashion Design Studio student parades and Akira Isogawa; mentoring young designers and involving herself in promotional events for the restoration of Oxford Street Paddington and fundraising for causes ranging from the RSPCA to the Starlight Foundation.
Mary, has two adult children. One boy living abroad working as a chef and daughter living in Noosa, Australia’s premier holiday destination a publisher of her family travel website about Noosa. www.BringTheKidsNoosa.com.au