Poepke Projects proudly presents Day Keeper by Leah Giblin.
Leah Giblin is a bespoke textile designer and costume artist with a focus on sustainability, recycling and textile waste reduction. Her label – Day Keeper – is designed and manufactured locally in Sydney. Leah loves sharing knowledge about mending, sewing, natural dyeing and sustainable fashion through teaching workshops and has taught workshops at Australian Museum, The Opera House, Cornersmith, schools, festivals, markets and at her studio in Rockdale.
Leah’s three great interests have always been textiles, art, and the environment. She began with a degree in Environmental Studies, while always sewing and making in her spare time. Her love of costume and historical fashion developed over time and eventually drew her to NIDA, where she completed a costume degree. She followed that with ten years in the film and television industry, working as a costume maker, stylist, costume designer, textile artist and standby. Leah has collaborated on textile works with visual artists Rochelle Haley , Mikala Dwyer, Koji Ryui, Lauren Brincat, Agatha Gothe-Snape, Justene Williams, Techa Noble, Diana Baker-Smith and Kate Blackmore.
Designing this capsule collection and the opportunity offered by Poepke to showcase it as part of their Projects program, I took as an occasion to create a very special range, an exploration of texture, colour and sustainability, using beautiful natural materials and collaborating with the best artisans and makers.
This collection is the opposite of fast fashion. Each piece has been slowly and ethically made by hand at the Day Keeper studio in Sydney, using painstaking historical techniques and dye processes.
The garments are embellished with hand-cut and textured silver and brass hardware and glass beads. Every detail carefully considered. These are limited edition pieces made to last for generations.
I’ve called the collection ‘to all ships at sea’ in reference to the map I’ve hidden within the clothes. Small clues and directions, arrows pointing the way. Glass beads are instructions for where to fold and press.
I created these pieces to cocoon and comfort, using the softness and solidity of natural fibres and the sense that this clothing has been held, touched by human hands, stitched slowly and with hope.
