A Life That Was Made To Measure

Sun Herald

Sunday January 20, 2008

Elaine Townshend spoke to Glynis Traill-Nash

After 40 years in the rag trade, Cash Palace owner and designer ELAINE TOWNSHEND shuts up shop and tries retirement on for size. Sort of.

I'VE had my career now for around 40 years, so I put it into cycles, and the Cash Palace part of my life is at the end of its cycle. I first came to Sydney as a young woman, pregnant and with a young son, from Western Australia when I was about 22. I had always wanted to be a fashion designer but in Perth there was no such thing as going to fashion design school in the late '50s and early '60s. So I did what all other Perth girls did - nursing or teaching - and went nursing. But it was not for me.

In Perth you have a dream of coming east and that for me meant reinventing myself - from a suburban nonentity to a person with an identity that was not associated with my past or my family.

There's a price to pay because when you cut yourself off from your family connection you have to reinvent your own family.

So when I came here I wanted to mix with people in the theatre, in movies, art galleries, avant garde people, people with ideas, people who were brave enough to live their own lives. And I wanted to be that type of person.

I started off [my fashion career in 1967] by going to an auction [where I bought] a suitcase for $5. When I took it home and opened it there was a fox fur wrap, table linen, some old pieces of clothing, pieces of lace, an old nightdress and a couple of camiknickers. I washed them and cleaned them up and then thought I'd take them to the markets.

So I started by buying all these Victorian pieces and making Victorian nightdresses. [First] I'd take them to Paddy's Markets. Then I opened the first Cash Palace shop in Balmain because I had too much stuff at home and didn't have any room for the children. The place looked like a Chinese laundry after a Molotov cocktail.

All sorts of fabulous people were coming in like Brett and Wendy Whiteley, and also Wendy Weir, Peter Weir's wife, and the Beresfords. And quite often the [filmmakers'] wives would be doing the costumes for these early movies so they used me as a supply source for Gallipoli, My Brilliant Career and a lot of early TV shows.

Anything I couldn't buy, I'd reproduce. I taught myself how to sew. In about '71 I broke up with my husband, Max Townshend. He remarried and went to live in England and I was left pretty much holding the baby.

When you realise that the road you're travelling is not the one your partner's going on ... I decided to pull the plug. I've been with [my current partner James Phillips] for nearly 30 years and we still get on like a house on fire. But the divorce was a catalyst to change, so I moved to Bellevue Hill and started my business in Paddington on Oxford Street.

About a year or so before that I went to a vintage clothing auction and bought some of the most beautiful Chinese and Japanese robes. I'd always fantasised that one day I could travel, so it kicked me off to go to the countries of origin of all these beautiful clothes. I went to Asia for many, many years and brought back collections to sell. Then I started to make Western-style clothing out of all the broken kimono and that became one of my top sellers.

A lot of young designers were starting to come through my front door, talking to me about fashion, or buying the odd kimono. I sold to a lot of designers - Maggie Tabberer, Adele Weiss, Katie Pye - but with that came a lot of younger people as well. So I started off in the '80s [selling] a lot to these young designers. There was Collette Dinnigan with her Palladium range, Dinosaur Designs, Studibaker Hawk, all these lovely young people with all these ideas but who didn't have a shop to put them all in. So I said, 'Come to Cash Palace and I'll promote you.'

By this time I had a store in Bondi Junction, one in Double Bay, QVB [in the city], Darlinghurst and a supplementary shop in Darlinghurst called Sid's where I would sell all my odds and sods for a reduced price. We went through quite a lovely stage where I felt I was a bit of a mentor, giving a bit of input as to what the client wanted. Then they all became successful and moved on to their own stores and their own successes. It was also nice for me to get input from young people, but the writing was on the wall. The next change for Cash Palace was making everything myself. I realised that if I'm not paying for a middle man I can offer a very, very good service at a very, very good price.

Dresses for school formals were under $500 and the quality got better and better. I started to make more bridal wear - at one stage I had three or four designers working for me.

In about 1994 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. As I got older and got sick I felt I wasn't being a very good manager. I worked throughout the cancer treatment. I rang one bride and said, 'You're having a fitting on Friday. I've just been diagnosed with cancer and I'm having treatment that day. Can I reschedule you?' About 20 minutes later she was at the shop, hysterical - 'What about my wedding? What about my dress?' I said, 'Don't worry, I will reschedule [my] appointment.'

[I told the hospital] I wasn't telling any more of them that I'm inconveniencing them. And they said I could be the last patient of the night. So I would have my treatments after hours, go home, sleep it off and be back to work the next day. I did this for over a year - first the chemotherapy, then the radiation, then chemo again. I survived it.

The problem with this business is once you commit and take money from someone, how can you let them down? It's a contract between you. That is one of the reasons I closed Cash Palace. The average number of clients seeing me would be between 20 and 30 a day, six to seven days a week. I finished on Oxford Street six years ago when the rent squeezed me out for the last time. Then it was time to reinvent and I came to Parramatta Road, Annandale, by appointment only. In the end I just thought, I can't do this any more. It's insane to work like this at this stage of my life. So [last year] I decided to sell the building and retire.

I'm nearly 65 now but I still have a few people contacting me here asking if I can help them out from time to time. I wake up in the morning wanting to be creative. These hands create something every day of my life.

There's been a price to pay by being driven and having a business. I've got three sons and a daughter and I don't have good relationships with any of the boys. I'm not conventional. I've probably not been a Vegemite sandwich-maker - I've probably been a hummus and tabouli maker. When I talked earlier about creating your own family, I've made a family of creative people who accept me for who I am.

I think, to be unbelievably happy in what you've done can be a bit scary to people. I can never say for one minute I'm not happy with a choice I've made in life.

© 2008 Sun Herald

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