Avril Buchanan

Avril Buchanan is an emerging artist specialising in preserving the ancient and rare artisan skill of pleating.

So, what is pleating?

Pleating is an ancient textile craft. However, this particular modern variation of artisan pleating is most closely associated with kilts and couture.

It involves the use of pleat pattern templates folded in heavy card, which then function as moulds to replicate the pattern in a textile using a heat-setting process.

What is it about pleating that fascinates you?

Pleating can transform a flat piece of fabric into an otherworldly, living textile. It’s possible to get a sense of this through visual media, but the tactile qualities add another dimension to the experience entirely.

You can see these qualities in the recent Iris van Herpen exhibition at QAGOMA. I think it's for this reason that pleating has remained relevant as a tool for expressing cultural narratives for thousands of years.

We usually think of pleats in relation to fashion, but if they're viewed simply as folds, it’s possible draw inspiration from a new repertoire of living and non-living folded patterns, structures and objects.

Why is pleating considered a dying art form?

There is no access to training in Australia, formal or informal. Mould making is considered a specialised skill and is approaching the classification of a lost trade.

Having access to the Specialty Pleaters workshop provides an opportunity to access its 100-year-old collection of moulds. Analysing this collection and the contents of the workshop offers opportunities to interpret and recreate some of the traditional practices.

Specialty Pleaters is the only pleating company in Melbourne, and one of only three pleating companies in Australia. Due to the broader issues faced by the textile industry, none of these can offer employment or substantial training.

There are also very few pleating workshops around the world, and none offer training beyond brief exposure or multi-day workshops. I was incredibly lucky to secure a one-off training and exchange program in 2023, supervised by the Egyptian company Global Pleating and supported by The George Alexander Foundation and the International Specialised Skills Institute. Global Pleating is unique in its ability to design decorative origami patterns and supplying these moulds to other pleating workshops.

Conservation of a dying art form is not a one-person job – how do you plan on passing on your knowledge and expertise to others in the industry?

Specialty Pleaters is a volunteer workshop consisting of two people, including me. After a decade of mounting financial pressures, we are now working within an incredibly narrow timeframe before the workshop's closure in early 2025. Our single most important priority is finding a new location for some of the moulds and equipment before the closure.

Without sufficient resources, it's been difficult to provide incentives to the specialists that we need to be involved on a continuous basis for this to be successful. However, our strategies for conserving the craft and passing on this knowledge include, but are not limited to:

• Cataloguing hundreds (possibly thousands) of moulds.
• Developing curriculum adapted to fashion & textile education programs.
• Developing notation and training specific to pleating craft.
• Moving towards digital media to communicate, conserve and evolve the craft.
• Working with artists and micro manufacturers to demonstrate the relevance of pleating in contemporary design.