Suzanne Lynch
Many of us grew up with Suzanne of The Chicks. We catch up with this icon of our age.
Carla Watson
Putting her best foot forward with her textile design company, Imprint.
Thinspiration through the Modelling World
The issue of eating disorders within the modelling world has once again been thrust into the limelight with the death of two models last year..
her inspiration
40 years on and still going strong
Suzanne Lynch
Many of us grew up with Suzanne Lynch, of The Chicks.
Her Magazine catches up with this icon of our age.
It’s 40 years since local music show
C’mon graced our TV screens so, when you meet Suzanne Lynch of The Chicks face-to-face, it’s surprising that she looks much the same as she did back then.
Now somewhere in her 50s (one doesn’t like to ask), she’s still as blond, energetic, pretty and tiny. She’s in great shape, too, thanks partly to the huge treadmill, which takes up much of her lounge, her love of walking – preferably on the beach – and a twice-weekly pilates class.
Being a singer is a high-energy occupation, so keeping fit and healthy is paramount. “I keep away from people with colds, it’s a singer’s nightmare. It takes the voice away,” she asserts.
You might think that in a small country like ours, a 50-something female singer might find work a trifle difficult to come by. For some that’s true. But not Suzanne. “I expect to work so I get it,” she says.
Suzanne sings at corporate functions round the country. She performs regularly in Queenstown, singing at corporate gigs of 300 - 400 people.
With Tina Cross, Jackie Clarke and Taisha, she has formed The Ladykillers, and bookings, many of them corporate, are flowing in. Recently they were on
Dancing with The Stars.
In fact, TV work – behind and in front of the screen – has provided plenty of work for Suzanne in recent years. Perhaps the most inspiring was
NZ Idol.
A voice coach for Idol contestants for three years, Suzanne found it taxing and thrilling. “Listening to their problems, teaching them technique, I just loved it. It’s great seeing them on stage knowing the dramas they’ve undergone during the week and the sheer terror of performing with a live band in front of critical judges. The kids grow up, learn a lot about themselves, learn professionalism and self-discipline,” she enthuses.
She discovered a natural ability to teach, and uses the same techniques taught her at the Hubert Milverton-Carta Music School many years ago. It is these skills that enable Suzanne to sing for four hours straight, while many others start to lose their voice after an hour.
Suzanne says she ‘sort of fell into’ her career. She was asked to sing at a party, was heard by a music promoter, offered a recording contract and, along with her sister Judy, became The Chicks. Still in her early teens, she travelled around the country, until Val Doonican invited her to England to sing on his TV show. She was just 19 and completely petrified, only natural, given 30 million people were watching.
A six-week holiday turned into eight years for Suzanne and her musician hubby, Bruce Lynch.
She was in constant demand as a session singer, but was enticed away by Cat Stevens to lead his group of vocalists. In all, she performed on four Cat Stevens albums, and went on two world tours. Her biggest concert was at Madison Square Garden where she sang Moonshadow with him. They became good friends until his conversion to Islam, which meant that, as a woman, she could no longer have one-to-one conversations with him. “I found it very hard to get over but he still keeps in touch.”
In her late 20s, motherhood struck, so Suzanne and Bruce moved back home, where they “lived on the beach, so Andrew could grow up with the sea and sand between his toes”.
Trying to balance singing with motherhood meant she didn’t get much sleep. Suzanne would feed and bath the kids, read them a story, then go off to work. “It was hard in the winter,” she admits, “but the kids would say I was grumpy when I wasn’t singing.”
Even after all these years, Suzanne loves her work. Music, she says, can be healing, it reaches everybody; it is universal.
So universal that, not long back, she boarded an air force Hercules and headed to East Timor to help entertain our troops stationed there. She lived with the army – with all that implies – for a week, and found the troops very pleased to see someone from home.
Not too many high profile singers would stoop to mixing with the hoi polloi but there’s nothing of the prima donna about Suzanne. She’s a natural, down to earth, Kiwi girl at heart. She lives modestly, puts her family first and has a strong work ethic.
Two years later Suzanne died. She went into anaphylactic shock after eating broccoli, and her heart stopped. She was out for around three minutes, but says, “You can’t kill weeds”. After a short hospital stay, she went directly back to the
NZ Idol set.
There have been other life lessons too, but strangely, for such a high profile muso, never a breath of scandal. “I started at 14, but kept away from the madness. I can look people in the eye, there are no skeletons in my closet,” she exclaims.
Just as she has no wish to stop working – “I’m like the Queen Mother, still going at 90. I see no reason why not if I’m still enjoying it” – and she never wants to stop learning.
Being a lover of trying new things, Suzanne has started writing songs, has a US publishing deal, is a co-publisher of DW Music in LA, and has her own publishing company here, Vox Office Music Publishing. She is keen to open a place where kids can do workshops and singing. She lectures in Australia, goes to Hong Kong each New Year, and travels constantly. And, just in case she gets bored with all of this, she’s looking at going into real estate.
It takes courage and strength to take on new challenges but Suzanne has never turned down an opportunity to learn. “Attitude affects your life – if you have the right attitude, you can do it. If the opportunity presents itself, you have to be ready mentally and physically to take it.”
By Lynnaire Johnston
her insight
Putting Her Best Foot Forward
Carla Watson
Textile designer and printer, Carla Watson, is making an impression in the fashion industry. Following a successful entry in the New Zealand Wearable Art Awards - Open Section, Carla worked with fashion label Tango on a printed fabric design, which they used extensively in their Bonnie & Clyde collection.
Encouraged by her success with Tango, Carla started her own textile design company, Imprint, in 2003. The printing technique she developed enabled her to print on to hosiery, but she found that taking an idea from the design and development process through to the finished product presented many challenges. “Experimenting with different printing inks that would wash and wear well on nylon stockings, even right through to printing on to fishnets, which are 90% holes, took detective work,” explains Carla. She persevered and released her first collection of printed hosiery which displayed two different abstract netting designs.
Carla then pitched her hosiery and screen-printing services to New Zealand fashion designers, who specialised in unusual fabrics and small print runs. “Textile printing and fashion go hand-in-hand and there are endless possibilities: printing on to garments, fabrics, accessories, bags, belts, hats, scarves, underwear, the list goes on,” she says. “Imprint is able to print on to a range of fabrics such as cotton, polyester, nylon, leather and wool etc.”
Some of the notable designers who have used Carla’s hosiery processes are Stella Gregg, Caroline Church, Laurie Foon of Starfish, Caroline Moore, Barbara Lee and High Society. She says she got a thrill every time a model strutted the catwalk wearing her hosiery designs during the New Zealand Fashion Week.
Imprint makes to order, with a 2 - 3 week turn-around period for delivery. Carla chose to source her hosiery stock from a New Zealand made supplier, which means the quality is consistently high. “We could look at sourcing hosiery stock off-shore but quality control would be a lot harder to guarantee. Imprint prides itself in having a completely New Zealand made product.”
Carla says it was scary putting a new product out into the fashion industry, and the initial breakthrough came when stores expressed interest in her designs and began stocking Imprint products. “The buyers really loved what I was doing. Their favourable comments and willingness to stock my products were the kick start I needed to get Imprint really up and running.”
As the business expanded, she found time-management and planning skills a key to Imprint’s continued success. “I needed to plan ahead. This kept me on track and kept the business moving forward.” Carla also says it is important to never stop learning. She attends business training workshops and surrounds herself with people who are passionate about business in her industry.
She also acknowledges the importance of relationships, business ethics and networking. “Once a year, I visit the bulk of Imprint stockists to keep in contact with them and get to know new ones. For me it is important to have good communication and an open and honest relationship with my customers and stockists.” Carla believes that treating people in business with respect and honesty makes a difference to her business dealings. “By being upfront, misunderstandings are sorted straight away, and business-to-business relationships are much more pleasant.”
Carla feels incredibly fortunate that she is able to make a career from her passion for design. She attributes much of her success to the support of her family. “Without my husband, Aaron, none of this would be possible. I am grateful for his love, encouragement and support. I feel very lucky to have inherited my father’s fantastic creative ability and my mother’s business acumen.”
During the five years since Carla started Imprint, the business has gone from having three stockists to now providing stock for 48 stores nationwide. In her first collection in 2003, she had two designs, one hosiery product and four colour choices. Imprint now offers three separate hosiery collections that are comprised of nearly 20 printed designs in over 30 colour choices. Her collection includes a themed fashion range ‘Body Art’, and a selection of Maori-inspired designs. This year, she introduced her Children’s Collection, which includes tights for babies and toddlers. She also has a range of printed socks for men.
Carla is looking to export her designs, first to Australia and then further a field. She says the idea of exporting is a bit scary, but she understands that if Imprint is to continue to grow, this is the next track that she must head down.
By Kathryn Taylor
her wellbeing
Thinspiration Through the Modelling World
With the death of two models in 2006 and the overhaul of regulations within the European fashion industry, the issue of eating disorders within the modelling world has once again been thrust into the limelight.
When Uruguayan model, Luisel Ramos, died at a fashion show last year her Body Mass Index (BMI) - a calculation based on height and weight - had hit a low of 14.5. With the World Health Organisation classifying a BMI of 16 as starvation, the fashion industry had to respond. Concerned fashion week organisers in Madrid introduced a ban on models with a BMI below 18. Despite the slowly rising unease in the industry it seems that changes were made too late for some. In November, Brazilian model, Ana Carolina Reston, passed away due to ‘complications’ in her pursuit to be thin. Her weight, at the time, was considered healthy for a 12 year old girl.
As waves of potential change passed through Europe, the fashion industry attempted to step away from the size 6 - 8 look. In Spain, the Spanish Health Minister suggested measures to improve self regulation within the industry, leaving those considered too thin to seek alternative jobs. Throughout Europe the slender mannequins that line the store front windows of major clothing stores may also be going up in size soon.
Closer to home, the Australian Fashion Council assessed the situation in Australia. Through hosting an industry forum earlier this year they uncovered a need for guidelines to govern Australian models and to discourage the use of models deemed to be too thin on catwalks.
As Air New Zealand Fashion Week approaches, how will New Zealand respond to the upsizing global trend? Or, more importantly, do we need to? Mandy Jacobsen from Red 11 Models and Talent believes the shock waves within the industry never really reached New Zealand’s shores. “The simple truth is the European regulations hardly even registered as a blip on our radar, as we don’t suffer the same concerns. New Zealand models working here are healthy and fit. Generally they have to drop a few inches or pounds to be able to model successfully in overseas markets. We are a green, healthy country and our models reflect that.”
Despite our clean image the threat of eating disorders within the community is still one that needs to be addressed. In developed societies anorexia is the third most common chronic illness in young females. Ironically, obesity and asthma hold the places of first and second. It seems that finding a healthy weight balance is proving to be difficult for some. But is the fashion industry really to blame?
“The fashion industry has an impact on eating disorders but it is not influential enough to cause them. Something else is necessary,” believes Charles Fishman, Director of NZ Eating Disorder Specialists. “Stressful relationships, especially within the family, and conflict avoidance impacts on disorders.”
Besides personal factors, social factors, such as the glamorisation of being thin and the social pressure to stay slim, may give rise to weight issues. Those who are content with their dwindling size can find support and inspiration from others online who share the same slimming passion. Over 1,000 pro-anorexia sites are dedicated to tip-swapping - providing guidance on how to achieve that ‘heroin chic’ look - and have thinspiration galleries filled with images of skeletal models and stars.
The Internet has also increased pressure amongst models, as agencies can gain access to a broader range of talent. Tokyo’s modelling scene has seen competition increase over the years as a broader range of models look for work there. Melissa*, originally from France, has been in the industry in Japan for nearly 10 years. “There are a lot more Eastern European girls modelling here and competition has increased,” she says. Melissa found it a lot easier to find work at the start of her career here but now things are tougher. She has also found that her phone soon stops ringing whenever her weight increases by a few pounds. “It’s simple. If you’re not skinny enough you just won’t get the jobs here.”
“Models are meant to be living, breathing, walking coat hangers or mannequins. Designers like size 8 -10 models, and all they are really after is a model with the right look and the right body shape to make their clothes look as great as possible,” says Jacobsen. “The designers always have, and will continue, to design samples in a size 8 -10, so until that changes we are unlikely to see any change in model requirements when it comes to body shape.”
Within the fashion world there is a distinction between high-fashion and commercial modelling. Jacobsen points out that, in New Zealand, “generally a girl needs to be a fuller size 8 or a small 10 (on the catwalks) but in commercial photography a size 10 is perfect.”
A former model who worked in New Zealand looks back on her days of modelling as her skinniest days. “I was constantly told to lose weight and while at my smallest, I was considered a good size for the New Zealand market. European designers would come over to pick the girls for their shows over here and I remember them telling most of us that our bums were to big or our hips were too wide.”
As we flick through the fashion pages of top magazines we quickly forget the hours of make-up, photography and touch-ups that created each model’s image. But as magazines start to choose a more realistic range of women to grace their fashion pages, and as the catwalks throughout Europe slowly become more open to bodies that portray curves rather than bones, we can only hope that one less factor impacting on eating disorders will be removed and women can embrace the beauty of their own bodies, regardless of their size.
* Note, name has been changed
By Karryn Cartelle
