Queensland designers inducted in DIA Hall of Fame

Pamela Easton & Lydia Pearson at David Jones AW13 Fashion Launch 2013

Congratulations to Queensland fashion designers Pamela Easton and Lydia Pearson who were inducted in the Design Institute of Australia's (DIA) Hall of Fame.

The Design Hall of Fame Program celebrates the work of eminent designers and their significant contribution to Australia’s economic development and cultural identity. 

The following is the citation from the DIA website:

Pamela Easton and Lydia Pearson first met in 1977 through friends in their hometown, Brisbane.

Before starting their design partnership, both women spent time working in the fashion industry. Easton worked for Sportsgirl in Brisbane as Merchandise Manager and State Manager before moving to Melbourne to work at their Head Office as a buyer. After a decade, she returned to Brisbane to start her own label. During this time Pearson established her label Lydia Pearson Atelier in 1980 and opened a store in the Brisbane Arcade in 1986. Easton and Pearson formally started their design partnership in 1989 under the brand Bow and Arrow by Easton Pearson. Oh! by Easton Pearson followed a couple of years later, finally amalgamating into Easton Pearson. In 1998, the label showed at Paris Fashion Week and it has been stocked in some of the finest stores nationally and internationally including a long standing presence in David Jones. In 2009 a retrospective of Easton Pearson’s work was to be the first fashion design exhibition at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art. The exhibition, displayed across four rooms and featuring more than 70 outfits, explored and celebrated Easton Pearson’s unique artistic and creative design processes.

For Australian Mercedes Benz Fashion Festival 2013 in Sydney, Easton Pearson was selected as just the second Australian designer to receive the globally recognised honour of Mercedes-Benz Presents. After 27 successful years, the couple closed the business in 2016 to focus on other creative persuits and, in the case of Pearson, teaching at QUT. Easton Pearson’s collections were characterised by their intelligent, thoughtful, and often quirky, approach to clothing and fashion. Their use of pattern, print and embellishment is a recognizable aesthetic. A disinterest in following trends of the moment meant that each piece had a sense of longevity, earning a permanent position in the wearer’s wardrobe.

Listen to the Brisbane women in fashion clothing, community and culture conversation recorded at SLQ in 2011 to hear more about the designers.

Other Australian designers inducted in the Hall of Fame included: fashion designer, Collette Dinnigan; interior designer and journalist, Babette Hayes; and textile designer Shirley de Vocht.

In Design Online you can read about Queensland furniture maker Robert Dunlop who was posthumously inducted in the DIA Hall of Fame in 2015.