< class="portfolio_title" > A Guy Called Chai – Clarence Chai fashion designer, history and legacy
A Guy Called Chai – Clarence Chai fashion designer, history and legacy
A Guy Called Chai – Clarence Chai fashion designer, history and legacy
Having researched and written about the life and work of Melbourne fashion designer Clarence Chai (see below) I was asked by Clarence in 2019 to advise him on what to do about his extensive archive of his creative working life. After I’d negotiated the deposit of Clarence’s archive at RMIT Design Archives, the COVID19 pandemic struck and after several year’s delay, the archive was eventually able to be deposited at RMIT in Melbourne in late 2022. This delay sadly meant that it happened only following Clarence’s death, in August of 2022. Nonetheless it means that Clarence’s creative legacy will be available for researchers and designers to consult into the future. The story of his role in Australian fashion design and the potential inspiration his designs will provide to students and designers is now assured.
In May 2023, in conjunction with the RMIT exhibition ‘Radical Utopia: An Archelogy of a Creative City’ curated by Harriet Edquist, RMIT Design Archives held a special event, displaying elements of Clarence’s archive along with a Guest Lecture by Sally Gray on Clarence’s career. A group of RMIT Masters students created celebratory installations, which they titled ‘A Guy Called Chai’, evoking their creative response to Clarence’s work.
Sally’s published work on Clarence Chai:
Sally Gray (2017 & 2019) Friends, Fashion and Fabulousness: The Making of an Australian Style, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne
Sally Gray (2020) “Asia-Chic in 1970s Australian Fashion: The Case of Clarence Chai”, in Margaret Maynard (Ed)
Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion Vol 7, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, DOI:10.2752/9781847888563.EDch71819
Sally Gray (2023) “Clarence Chai at Crossley Street”, in Harriet Edquist and Helen Stuckey (Eds) RMIT Design Archives Journal, Special Issue: Radical Utopia: An Archaeology of a Creative City,
Vol. 13, No. 1, (2023).
ABC RN Blueprint for Living
21 October 2023, Sally Gray interview on Clarence Chai legacy
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/blueprintforliving/blueprint-life-legacy-clarence-chai/102984888
Critical Fashion Studies Podcast, Season Two: Spotlight on Melbourne
Episode: ‘Clarence in The City’, Sally Gray on Clarence Chai
https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cfs-pod/episodes/Introducing-Season-Two-Spotlight-on-Melbourne-e22baim
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