Inside The Designer’s Studio With Manning Cartell

‘How does fashion get made?’ is a queerly-phrased question you’ve probably asked yourself on the reg as you’ve sifted through your personal couture collection before a night on the tiles.  The answer to the question is: something we cannot possibly provide you because designers want to keep it a secret!  If everyone knew how to do it there wouldn’t be anything special about it – like DJing was until the year 2003.  We spoke to Cheryl, Vanessa and Gabrielle Manning of Australian fashion label Manning Cartell who wouldn’t reveal the secrets to how they create the modern feminine beauty of their clothing, but did give us a behind-the-scenes look into where the creation takes place: their design studio in inner-west Sydney suburb of Marrickville.  Armed with a Sony NEX 5-R camera the girls gave us a visual tour of the space in which the magic happens…

Each office is connected by a long runway style corridor, brilliant for model castings:

Head office girls Monica & Sanja hard at work!

Our favourite artwork frames the hallway and corridor; it’s by Carlos Barrios and called “Alive City”:

Our office succulents! And rooftops of Marrickville:

A peek inside our creative room, a space where we eat lunch and brainstorm:

The girls organising the always growing sample rack!

A shot of Marketing Manager Jess’ desk:

A cosy nook to have a cup of tea or read a book:

Jess on the run!

The spiral staircase that connects the two levels of our studio:

Our patterns all ready to go for our new AW13 collection!

Vanessa Manning’s Mood Board:

The shelves in our creative room are filled with treasured pieces from holidays abroad, antique markets and loads of books:

The Archive rack, lots of colour, texture and print!

Images by Manning Cartell.