Fabric With Black Roots
The Age
Sunday August 25, 1996
WHEN THE African-American singer Gil Scott-Heron visited Melbourne in 1995, a young design student presented him with a swatch of fabric she had made to reflect his lyrics and culture. He loved it.
Almost two years later, the student has won one of the most prestigious awards in the country for her textile designs, and Scott-Heron has asked her to design the jackets for two books he has written.
Monique De La Tour, 32, can hardly believe it. On Friday she was three months late with the rent and worrying if she could afford to finish her textiles studies at RMIT.
On Saturday she won two awards in the inaugural Victorian Design Awards - the first, the Textile Design Student Award, includes an airline ticket to an international design event plus spending money and local training.
The judges were so impressed with her work that they also created a new award for her - $5000 for Outstanding Achievement.
Interviewed before the ceremony, De La Tour was hopeful. ``Oh man, if I win I'll be able to pay the rent and maybe buy something special for my kids because they have gone without for so long."
De La Tour's winning designs were produced using computer imagery, new weaving techniques and screen printing. The fabrics were designed for fashion and upholstery and were inspired by Gil Scott-Heron's lyrics and the writings of African American poet Langston Hughes. ``I've been learning about black history for a long time for my children's sake; they were born in the West Indies.
We lived in Jamaica for four years and I used photographs I took of my friends in the designs," she said.
``I wanted to help expose black writers and the lyrics of musicians by putting them in a visual form that would reach a wide audience. I'm really happy the judges chose the designs because hopefully people will wonder about the culture and ask questions."
De La Tour, a fourth-year textiles student, said she dropped out of school when she was 14. She won a place at RMIT based on her folio.
``The awards are great because people can see that there are students out there who are really trying to produce good work. Often it's really difficult. Materials are very expensive and the changes in the Budget for higher education don't help.
I'm still not entirely sure if I'll be able to finish next year."
© 1996 The Age