Music
Thompson: Its Fashion Week in Sydney and young Australian designers are showing off their wares.
Most have gone for a retro theme, recycling Western clothing-styles from the 1980s.
But one design duo has taken inspiration from a land and culture thats right off the fashion map.
Kirsten: Cath youve got Julia coming out in the yellow fishermans pants and the society top, not Sarah.
Music
Kirsten: My phones just broken.
Thompson: Cathy Braid and Kirsten Ainsworth are unveiling their new label, Caravana.
Kirsten: Were just starting out. We dont have massive dreams of conquering the world all in one day.
Thompson: Inspired by Central Asia, the clothes are painstakingly handmade by women half the world away.
Music
Thompson: Just getting this far has been a remarkable journey.
While the clothes celebrate the female form, theyve come from a place where women have to hide their bodies.
Thompson: Locked in by winter for five months of the year, Chitral is among the worlds most remote mountain valleys, but still boasts a population of 350,000 people. Most are Sunni Muslims although there are other beliefs in the valley too. But wherever you go in Chitral town, men is all that you see on the street.
Except for Cathy and Kirsten that is.
Thompson: When theyre not competing on the catwalk, they live and work in Chitral. This remote corner of North-West Pakistan, high in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, is not an obvious place for a womens clothing line.
The sexes are strictly segregated. Women have to be veiled. And its only the spectacle of masculine power which is celebrated at Chitrals annual sports day.
Cath: To start your own fashion label, particularly with what we wanted to do, it was just impossible.
Kirsten: We were at a crossroads, both of us
and wed been meeting for about a year in coffee shops about ideas and we saved up some money and got on a plane.
Thompson: Cathy and Kirsten have been based here for more than a year. They spend most days in a quieter place away from men -- the closed, private world of Chitrals women. Hidden behind this stretch of cornfields is Caravanas main embroidery centre.
About 100 women use their handicraft skills to produce the catwalk creations. Theyre from Chitrals Sunni Muslim majority and theyre bound by strict rules of purdah. They may make revealing clothes, but couldnt imagine even trying them on.
Razia: These things are strange and I think just like they are thinking they cannot wear these type of things in Chitral
Thompson: Do they want to wear these things?
Razia: I dont think so, no, no, no.
Thompson: Razia Suhrab works for a local organisation supporting Caravanas efforts.
These women never had a market for their traditional skills -- until Cathy and Kirsten arrived.
Razia: Some of these ladies are also, they are earning more money than their husbands, their fathers and brothers, so now they have a value in their family.
Thompson: It will take Usmania Gullam one month to embroider the skirt in her hands and turn it into a centrepiece of Caravanas upcoming winter collection.
Usmania will be paid about 100 dollars.
But that money makes a vast difference to Usmanias family. They were left destitute when her husband died six years ago.
Usmania: We are thirteen people living in this house and we dont have a fixed income. The money that I bring from the centre I share with my brothers, my mother in law and children.
I have a brother who is disabled and I have mother and father who are ill. He used to bring the money, but now the responsibility is on me.
Kirsten: Theres nothing more satisfying than putting money into the hands of these women who have never earned anything of their own blood, sweat and tears in their life.
The smiles on their faces say everything.
Thompson: Caravanas network of Muslim craftswomen stretches across the Chitral valley to the more moderate Ismaili community.
Cathy: theres a few subtle differences. They still consider themselves Muslims, but they pray three times a day instead of five times a day.
They dont practice purdah but if an Ismaili woman goes into Chitral town, shell still have to cover like this.
Kirsten: It looks very granny, grannys been working for three months
Thompson: But translating their skills to Western catwalks is always a challenge.
Kirsten: This one is beautiful
Woman: You look and check wait wait.
Kirsten: This one will become straight. This one is straight and this is straight..Look at this one. What have you done? Three boobs!
Music
Thompson: Playing polo is a local obsession.
Women in search of recreation can watch it too -- as long as they keep out of sight.
Music
Cath: How are you, friend?
Kirsten: Good, my friend
Cath: Whos winning?
Kirsten: Chitral A teams winning three goals.
Cath: And who scored those?
Kirsten: I dont know I cant see the trees in the way.
Music
Thompson: Before coming to Chitral, Cathy and Kirsten were not close friends.
They met briefly at high school, before catching up years later and discovering they both shared a dream of working and living overseas.
And despite their deep connections to this community, they are still outsiders.
Kirsten: Youve got an eyelash on your face, wish on it.
Cath: Where is it?
Kirsten: We are married to each other, you know, we are living in this island of isolation in this country, and there are no other foreigners here where we are, and no-one who speaks fluent English and mostly men. The women dont trust us you know, theyre nervous around us because, foreigners have preceded us here, English girls who were all wild and free and ran off with men and things like that, and we really have to play by the rules, because if we do something wrong, we can be thrown out in the blink of an eye, and we wont even know whats happened.
Weve just got each other behind these four big walls and were husband and wife, brother sister, father daughter, mother daughter you know, kind of best friend, kind of everything to each other and thats wonderful and its difficult as well.
I never really got into cooking before, but Ive gotten into cooking here. Its good, even though we have nothing.
Thompson: While Kirsten cooks up the evening meal, Cath picks up some bread from the local baker.
Cath: How are you? Good, yeah? Five pieces of bread
Man: Fresh?
Cath: Very hot, very hot.
Thompson: As the only young western women in the community, Cathy and Kirsten have different ideas about how to handle all the attention they attract.
Kirsten: Cath has the view that were émigrés and I dont give a damn, Ill do whatever I want and I dont like it its difficult. I dont like people looking at me.
You know I prefer not to be looked at, so I avoid being looked at.
We still get men calling us late at night and asking us to come and sit with them under chinar trees and drink cherry wine and these things but, they do know that we dont do those things and they respect that now.
Thompson: Its really tasty.
Kirsten: We try not to use so much oil. You have to taste the eggplant. The eggplants amazing.
And we have peaches and we have pomegranates and we have walnuts and we have tamarinds, and pears.
Geoff: A life of luxury!
Kirsten: And when we have no money, we just climb a tree. We do literally, dont we Cath?
Thompson: With the deadline for the next show just weeks away the issues of money and time are now uppermost in their minds.
This morning they are making an urgent delivery of wool to the Kalash people another distinct valley community with very particular skills.
Song on radio: My eyes are going black, waiting for you. You are telling me to live a happy life but how can I be happy without you? How can I be happy without you?
Kirsten: Where is your mother?
Child: The foreigners are here and they will give us money.
Thompson: The Kalash are not Muslims at all, but adhere to animist beliefs and colourful cultural traditions they say they can trace back to Alexander the Great.
Kirsten: You can see this ladys belt here its hand-woven and this is the same weaving that were using for the belts and its not done anywhere else. And the nice thing about it is that weve incorporated it into our collection so that we can bring work to these women and its different you dont see it anywhere else and they just do it in their homes.
Weve made slight modifications to the belt this ones about 8 foot long and they wrap it round and round and round and round and round, so weve made it a little bit thinner and not as long and used no fluoro colours.
Thompson: Many families in the Chitral valley now depend on Caravana and there are fears of what will happen if they leave.
Razia: There is a lot of expectations from these two ladies because, you know, Cathy and Kirsten they have finished their work. They have finished their pay to these ladies, so
now they have expectations, now they are asking when they will leave the project, what happen.
Thompson: Not only women, but men too are depending on Cathy and Kirsten.
These young men are paid to weave belts made from leather recycled from winter coats once worn by Europeans. The leather was sent to Pakistan to reinforce shoes.
Kirsten: The beautiful thing about them is that they are just so soft because it is second hand leather. Weve had great orders from these belts and these guys here are fantastic. Theyve been with us for about eight months now.
And we have this leather man in Kissahni Bazaar in Peshawar who we go to and hes really reliable. And we buy around 400 kilos of leather every time. I think he thinks all his Christmases have come at once. Now hes been able to buy a brand new weighing machine, which is fantastic and hes hoping to send his son overseas to go to school.
Thompson: This new beadwork shop was opened with money earned from Caravana orders.
Its run by Rehmat Walli a former member of the Taliban who returned to Chitral after the fundamentalist regime was toppled in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Rehmat: We use 32 needles, sixteen on one side and sixteen on the other.
Thompson: Rehmat Walli welcomes the work but says he has no feelings about working for women, even though women were banned from working at all under the Taliban.
Rehmat: I dont feel anything because I dont sit with them. They bring the work and then they go away.
Thompson: And suddenly, thats what Kirsten has to do.
With time running out, new materials are needed from the nearest city -- Peshawar -- a forty minute flight to the south.
Music
Thompson: Left alone, Cath is able to focus on what she knows best -- design.
Inspired by Central Asian motifs, Cath hand draws every skirt Caravana produces.
Cath: The design varies slightly each time, so the general idea is taken, but because its hand drawn it cant be perfect it wont be the same every time. So there might be an extra flower here, or an extra flower there, extra leaf here or there or a squiggle or whatever. And once thats drawn its taken down to the embroidery centre.
Because the pieces are so time consuming, we might have three ladies working on a particular piece, so youll get, youll see the differences between the work in one skirt as three different ladies have worked on it, which is really nice because it gives that handmade feel.
Thompson: Cath spent last winter isolated and working in Chitral and plans to do it again this year.
Its a tough existence in a fickle industry, but she is committed to Chitral and its people.
Cath: Its not even a question of worrying if we go
its a question of you know, what if no-one likes what we do, you know, what if the orders arent what we hope them to be and we sort of come back with not enough work to do for the ladies for four months so its trying to hit the mark every time.
Thompson: In Peshawar Kirsten is hitting the shops in search of the supplies Cath needs to complete the collection for Melbourne Fashion Week.
Kirsten : And Im down here working to try and make the money so that we can make the show. One thing is my responsibility, another thing is Caths responsibility and we just go from there. Inshallah, everything will be okay.
Kirsten on phone: The lawn is available so Ill get the lawn now, Ill get the anchor thread, Ochads coming at six. My friend came one week back. You are Murad? Hello are you? So I need gul ahmed with the plain black cotton.
Murad: Yeah it should be available. She told me that she will come after two weeks.
Kirsten: Okay, well I am here now. She needs it.
Murad: I can manage it. You can come 2-3 days later.
Kirsten: This one, I need now. Can you bring from another shop?
Murad: No this is not available.
Kirsten: Can you check?
Murad: Every shop has a different standard.
Kirsten: My problem is tomorrow morning, tomorrow morning 7 oclock, I must put it on a plane to Chitral.
Kirsten: Yeah, everything is a mad cram. Its manic. Last time, it was manic. This time, it will be manic. I think it is the nature of the beast. We seem to work best under pressure. So as the time is running out everything happens.
Music
Thompson: A month later and its finally all finished. Cath is Melbourne, with Kirstens mother Caroline helping her as they run late for their show.
Cath: Its just got the socks and the socks go halfway up the calves.
Thompson: Some last minute adjustments need to be juggled with an anxious Kirsten on the phone from Pakistan.
Caroline: That was Kirst shes desperate to know how everythings going and its really hard because she was so involved with Cath last time and there she is desperate to communicate. She just wants to be here -- missing it all, missing it all
Cath: Thats ok, I just dont want to see any flesh.
Music
Thompson: Months of grinding commitment in Pakistan are reduced to just a few dazzling minutes on a catwalk in Melbourne.
Cath: Just walking around in a big city where everybodys just go, go, go completely different pace of life to what Im used to and yeah, so, its kind of like, Im still very outside of it and just looking in really.
Thompson: But youre glad its over?
Cath: Yeah, glad its over. (laughs)
Music
Reporter: Geoff Thompson
Camera: Michael Cox
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen
Research: Anna Bracks
Thompson: Its Fashion Week in Sydney and young Australian designers are showing off their wares.
Most have gone for a retro theme, recycling Western clothing-styles from the 1980s.
But one design duo has taken inspiration from a land and culture thats right off the fashion map.
Kirsten: Cath youve got Julia coming out in the yellow fishermans pants and the society top, not Sarah.
Music
Kirsten: My phones just broken.
Thompson: Cathy Braid and Kirsten Ainsworth are unveiling their new label, Caravana.
Kirsten: Were just starting out. We dont have massive dreams of conquering the world all in one day.
Thompson: Inspired by Central Asia, the clothes are painstakingly handmade by women half the world away.
Music
Thompson: Just getting this far has been a remarkable journey.
While the clothes celebrate the female form, theyve come from a place where women have to hide their bodies.
Thompson: Locked in by winter for five months of the year, Chitral is among the worlds most remote mountain valleys, but still boasts a population of 350,000 people. Most are Sunni Muslims although there are other beliefs in the valley too. But wherever you go in Chitral town, men is all that you see on the street.
Except for Cathy and Kirsten that is.
Thompson: When theyre not competing on the catwalk, they live and work in Chitral. This remote corner of North-West Pakistan, high in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, is not an obvious place for a womens clothing line.
The sexes are strictly segregated. Women have to be veiled. And its only the spectacle of masculine power which is celebrated at Chitrals annual sports day.
Cath: To start your own fashion label, particularly with what we wanted to do, it was just impossible.
Kirsten: We were at a crossroads, both of us
and wed been meeting for about a year in coffee shops about ideas and we saved up some money and got on a plane.
Thompson: Cathy and Kirsten have been based here for more than a year. They spend most days in a quieter place away from men -- the closed, private world of Chitrals women. Hidden behind this stretch of cornfields is Caravanas main embroidery centre.
About 100 women use their handicraft skills to produce the catwalk creations. Theyre from Chitrals Sunni Muslim majority and theyre bound by strict rules of purdah. They may make revealing clothes, but couldnt imagine even trying them on.
Razia: These things are strange and I think just like they are thinking they cannot wear these type of things in Chitral
Thompson: Do they want to wear these things?
Razia: I dont think so, no, no, no.
Thompson: Razia Suhrab works for a local organisation supporting Caravanas efforts.
These women never had a market for their traditional skills -- until Cathy and Kirsten arrived.
Razia: Some of these ladies are also, they are earning more money than their husbands, their fathers and brothers, so now they have a value in their family.
Thompson: It will take Usmania Gullam one month to embroider the skirt in her hands and turn it into a centrepiece of Caravanas upcoming winter collection.
Usmania will be paid about 100 dollars.
But that money makes a vast difference to Usmanias family. They were left destitute when her husband died six years ago.
Usmania: We are thirteen people living in this house and we dont have a fixed income. The money that I bring from the centre I share with my brothers, my mother in law and children.
I have a brother who is disabled and I have mother and father who are ill. He used to bring the money, but now the responsibility is on me.
Kirsten: Theres nothing more satisfying than putting money into the hands of these women who have never earned anything of their own blood, sweat and tears in their life.
The smiles on their faces say everything.
Thompson: Caravanas network of Muslim craftswomen stretches across the Chitral valley to the more moderate Ismaili community.
Cathy: theres a few subtle differences. They still consider themselves Muslims, but they pray three times a day instead of five times a day.
They dont practice purdah but if an Ismaili woman goes into Chitral town, shell still have to cover like this.
Kirsten: It looks very granny, grannys been working for three months
Thompson: But translating their skills to Western catwalks is always a challenge.
Kirsten: This one is beautiful
Woman: You look and check wait wait.
Kirsten: This one will become straight. This one is straight and this is straight..Look at this one. What have you done? Three boobs!
Music
Thompson: Playing polo is a local obsession.
Women in search of recreation can watch it too -- as long as they keep out of sight.
Music
Cath: How are you, friend?
Kirsten: Good, my friend
Cath: Whos winning?
Kirsten: Chitral A teams winning three goals.
Cath: And who scored those?
Kirsten: I dont know I cant see the trees in the way.
Music
Thompson: Before coming to Chitral, Cathy and Kirsten were not close friends.
They met briefly at high school, before catching up years later and discovering they both shared a dream of working and living overseas.
And despite their deep connections to this community, they are still outsiders.
Kirsten: Youve got an eyelash on your face, wish on it.
Cath: Where is it?
Kirsten: We are married to each other, you know, we are living in this island of isolation in this country, and there are no other foreigners here where we are, and no-one who speaks fluent English and mostly men. The women dont trust us you know, theyre nervous around us because, foreigners have preceded us here, English girls who were all wild and free and ran off with men and things like that, and we really have to play by the rules, because if we do something wrong, we can be thrown out in the blink of an eye, and we wont even know whats happened.
Weve just got each other behind these four big walls and were husband and wife, brother sister, father daughter, mother daughter you know, kind of best friend, kind of everything to each other and thats wonderful and its difficult as well.
I never really got into cooking before, but Ive gotten into cooking here. Its good, even though we have nothing.
Thompson: While Kirsten cooks up the evening meal, Cath picks up some bread from the local baker.
Cath: How are you? Good, yeah? Five pieces of bread
Man: Fresh?
Cath: Very hot, very hot.
Thompson: As the only young western women in the community, Cathy and Kirsten have different ideas about how to handle all the attention they attract.
Kirsten: Cath has the view that were émigrés and I dont give a damn, Ill do whatever I want and I dont like it its difficult. I dont like people looking at me.
You know I prefer not to be looked at, so I avoid being looked at.
We still get men calling us late at night and asking us to come and sit with them under chinar trees and drink cherry wine and these things but, they do know that we dont do those things and they respect that now.
Thompson: Its really tasty.
Kirsten: We try not to use so much oil. You have to taste the eggplant. The eggplants amazing.
And we have peaches and we have pomegranates and we have walnuts and we have tamarinds, and pears.
Geoff: A life of luxury!
Kirsten: And when we have no money, we just climb a tree. We do literally, dont we Cath?
Thompson: With the deadline for the next show just weeks away the issues of money and time are now uppermost in their minds.
This morning they are making an urgent delivery of wool to the Kalash people another distinct valley community with very particular skills.
Song on radio: My eyes are going black, waiting for you. You are telling me to live a happy life but how can I be happy without you? How can I be happy without you?
Kirsten: Where is your mother?
Child: The foreigners are here and they will give us money.
Thompson: The Kalash are not Muslims at all, but adhere to animist beliefs and colourful cultural traditions they say they can trace back to Alexander the Great.
Kirsten: You can see this ladys belt here its hand-woven and this is the same weaving that were using for the belts and its not done anywhere else. And the nice thing about it is that weve incorporated it into our collection so that we can bring work to these women and its different you dont see it anywhere else and they just do it in their homes.
Weve made slight modifications to the belt this ones about 8 foot long and they wrap it round and round and round and round and round, so weve made it a little bit thinner and not as long and used no fluoro colours.
Thompson: Many families in the Chitral valley now depend on Caravana and there are fears of what will happen if they leave.
Razia: There is a lot of expectations from these two ladies because, you know, Cathy and Kirsten they have finished their work. They have finished their pay to these ladies, so
now they have expectations, now they are asking when they will leave the project, what happen.
Thompson: Not only women, but men too are depending on Cathy and Kirsten.
These young men are paid to weave belts made from leather recycled from winter coats once worn by Europeans. The leather was sent to Pakistan to reinforce shoes.
Kirsten: The beautiful thing about them is that they are just so soft because it is second hand leather. Weve had great orders from these belts and these guys here are fantastic. Theyve been with us for about eight months now.
And we have this leather man in Kissahni Bazaar in Peshawar who we go to and hes really reliable. And we buy around 400 kilos of leather every time. I think he thinks all his Christmases have come at once. Now hes been able to buy a brand new weighing machine, which is fantastic and hes hoping to send his son overseas to go to school.
Thompson: This new beadwork shop was opened with money earned from Caravana orders.
Its run by Rehmat Walli a former member of the Taliban who returned to Chitral after the fundamentalist regime was toppled in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Rehmat: We use 32 needles, sixteen on one side and sixteen on the other.
Thompson: Rehmat Walli welcomes the work but says he has no feelings about working for women, even though women were banned from working at all under the Taliban.
Rehmat: I dont feel anything because I dont sit with them. They bring the work and then they go away.
Thompson: And suddenly, thats what Kirsten has to do.
With time running out, new materials are needed from the nearest city -- Peshawar -- a forty minute flight to the south.
Music
Thompson: Left alone, Cath is able to focus on what she knows best -- design.
Inspired by Central Asian motifs, Cath hand draws every skirt Caravana produces.
Cath: The design varies slightly each time, so the general idea is taken, but because its hand drawn it cant be perfect it wont be the same every time. So there might be an extra flower here, or an extra flower there, extra leaf here or there or a squiggle or whatever. And once thats drawn its taken down to the embroidery centre.
Because the pieces are so time consuming, we might have three ladies working on a particular piece, so youll get, youll see the differences between the work in one skirt as three different ladies have worked on it, which is really nice because it gives that handmade feel.
Thompson: Cath spent last winter isolated and working in Chitral and plans to do it again this year.
Its a tough existence in a fickle industry, but she is committed to Chitral and its people.
Cath: Its not even a question of worrying if we go
its a question of you know, what if no-one likes what we do, you know, what if the orders arent what we hope them to be and we sort of come back with not enough work to do for the ladies for four months so its trying to hit the mark every time.
Thompson: In Peshawar Kirsten is hitting the shops in search of the supplies Cath needs to complete the collection for Melbourne Fashion Week.
Kirsten : And Im down here working to try and make the money so that we can make the show. One thing is my responsibility, another thing is Caths responsibility and we just go from there. Inshallah, everything will be okay.
Kirsten on phone: The lawn is available so Ill get the lawn now, Ill get the anchor thread, Ochads coming at six. My friend came one week back. You are Murad? Hello are you? So I need gul ahmed with the plain black cotton.
Murad: Yeah it should be available. She told me that she will come after two weeks.
Kirsten: Okay, well I am here now. She needs it.
Murad: I can manage it. You can come 2-3 days later.
Kirsten: This one, I need now. Can you bring from another shop?
Murad: No this is not available.
Kirsten: Can you check?
Murad: Every shop has a different standard.
Kirsten: My problem is tomorrow morning, tomorrow morning 7 oclock, I must put it on a plane to Chitral.
Kirsten: Yeah, everything is a mad cram. Its manic. Last time, it was manic. This time, it will be manic. I think it is the nature of the beast. We seem to work best under pressure. So as the time is running out everything happens.
Music
Thompson: A month later and its finally all finished. Cath is Melbourne, with Kirstens mother Caroline helping her as they run late for their show.
Cath: Its just got the socks and the socks go halfway up the calves.
Thompson: Some last minute adjustments need to be juggled with an anxious Kirsten on the phone from Pakistan.
Caroline: That was Kirst shes desperate to know how everythings going and its really hard because she was so involved with Cath last time and there she is desperate to communicate. She just wants to be here -- missing it all, missing it all
Cath: Thats ok, I just dont want to see any flesh.
Music
Thompson: Months of grinding commitment in Pakistan are reduced to just a few dazzling minutes on a catwalk in Melbourne.
Cath: Just walking around in a big city where everybodys just go, go, go completely different pace of life to what Im used to and yeah, so, its kind of like, Im still very outside of it and just looking in really.
Thompson: But youre glad its over?
Cath: Yeah, glad its over. (laughs)
Music
Reporter: Geoff Thompson
Camera: Michael Cox
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen
Research: Anna Bracks