Ellery Witchery
High-street retailer Witchery has launched a limited-edition, 30-piece collaboration collection with Ellery. Kym Ellery wears Witchery X Ellery Deep V Neckline Dress, $349.95, SHOP NOW Credit: Supplied.

SYDNEY, MARCH 10, 2022: A young harpist performing “River Flows In You” – a haunting track by South Korean pianist Yiruma – echoes about the walls of a palatial Darling Point property at the Witchery X Ellery showing this morning. Her sleeves – crisp white and billowing as she tinkers on the instrument’s strings– incite a flood of nostalgia: The voluminous silhouettes! The flares! The bell sleeves! Yes, the Ellery signature is back in town.

Today, high-street retailer Witchery has launched a limited-edition, 30-piece collaboration collection with Ellery. (And can we stress the term limited? Once it’s sold out, it’s gone for good!) A year in the making, the collection is the first time the designer has worked with an Australian retailer, and equally, it’s Witchery’s first-ever designer collab.

Ellery Witchery
Credit: Supplied

“My process was to really explore my own archives and look at the DNA of the Witchery brand who have a really long history,” an effortlessly denim-clad Kym Ellery tells GRAZIA. “We want to make clothes that make women feel good and that they can curate a wardrobe with and wear long-term. It’s about forever pieces, key pieces the Australian woman needs in her wardrobe: a blue-striped collared shirt, a good pair of black tailored pants, a dress for a wedding. It’s not fast-fashion, the focus is on quality.”

Ellery Witchery
Credit: Witchery

Having just flown into Sydney from Paris (where she has lived for six years – “My friends are all within walking distance and we live a really fun life drinking good wine and going to art galleries”), Ellery is excited to show to me through her favourite pieces.

KYM’S FAVOURITES: Linen Lace Blouse, $249.95 SHOP NOW Tailored Flare Pant, $199.95, SHOP NOW Leather Figure 8 Bag, $249.95 SHOP NOW

“Paris has been an education [where I’ve been able] to observe how another culture dresses and approaches fashion,” Ellery says citing Partisan, I/O, and the OFR bookstore as her favourite morning haunts.

“Paris definitely challenges me. But to be honest, I feel more inspired by nature in Australia; the beach, the bush. That’s where I really feel creative.”

Ellery Witchery
Credit: Supplied
Where It All Began

Part of the Australian pride is the idea that one of our own can make a big impression on the world stage. Made even sweeter is if that story comes from humble beginnings. Across the seas, Grace Coddington would wait three months for back issues of Vogue to arrive to her small town island in Wales; Alexander McQueen was the son of a London cabbie. But when it comes to fashion in Australia, it’s a tough landscape for our homegrowns. For starters, we’re geographically so far away from global markets, there’s big duties attached to importing fabrics, the dollar goes up and down like seasonal hemlines, and make no mistake, this country has some of the most expensive retail leases in the world.

But perhaps the lay of the land looked no tougher than the one Ellery grew up in. Born in Perth, the designer was raised in the far north-west Australian town of Karratha; rural, dusty red plains where dwellings were established to accommodate the mining and petroleum trades in the 60s. With an initial loan from then-rig-driver father, Bruce, the eponymous label Ellery – in and amongst the hard yakka town – began.

Studying for a year at Bentley TAFE (now Polytechnic West) in Perth, Ellery then did a short course in London at famed powerhouse Central Saint Martins. The youngster then moved to Sydney where she accepted a job as at the then newly-launched Russh magazine and also worked at Scanlan & Theodore on weekends.

Ellery Witchery
Credit: Witchery

Both roles helped her understand the ins-and-outs of the Australian market. In January of 2007, while working late nights as the newly-promoted market director at Russh, Ellery had an epiphany. Four months later, she debuted at Australian Fashion Week. She was 23.

Going Places

Bold, experimental silhouettes with an oversized, relaxed structure was Ellery’s signature, one that appealed to the “cool fashion girl in Australia” but also the international fashion lover; a fine (and almost impossible) line to tread, some might say. But it was enough to get the attention of the Fédération Française de la Couture du Prêt-à-Porter de Couturiers et des Créaeurs de Mode, the body that controls Paris Fashion Week. In 2015, only three Australian designers – Collette Dinnigan, Martin Grant and Ellery – had been invited to show in Paris. Punctuated with mega fashion houses such as Chanel, Dior and Lanvin, the calendar is also open to newcomers who display the desired attributes.

Ellery Witchery
Credit: Witchery

Ellery’s retro-modern, 70s-inspired signature wide-flared pants and elongated coats were stocked in Paris, Moscow, London, New York and in boutiques across The Middle East, China and Australia. Kym Ellery was our success story. Rihanna was wearing her work.

Sadly in 2019, Ellery announced she would be closing the Australian arm of her business. “I am very proud to have built an independent, globally recognised fashion house from my home, Australia, it has not been without its challenges,” Ellery wrote in a statement. “Unfortunately, running the production out of Australia proved to be commercially unsustainable. As a result of some poor strategic decisions that were made, and the high cost of manufacturing in Australia, we have been left with no choice but to close Elleryland, our production facility and Australian operations company.”

Ellery Witchery
Credit: Supplied.

Today, Ellery reflects on the what she has learnt in the past couple of years, a period of time she has called “challenging”.

“I’ve learned how to adapt and stay positive, how to be agile,” she says, pausing to gather the right words. “I feel like I’ve always had that skill but it’s definitely one I’ve had to use.”

“I’ve learnt that in my heart, I’m so Australian and always going to want to come home. Being trapped outside of the country for so long [during COVID], I realised this is such a large part of who I am.”

The harpist strings swell.

The Witchery x Ellery collection launches online at witchery.com.au on Thursday March 10 and in select Witchery and David Jones stores on Friday March 11. See the collection below.