Former Nelson Mandela Bay florist’s biodegradable dress wows Australia

Former Nelson Mandela Bay florist Ardea Murphy’s 100% biodegradable dress scooped the silver award at the Australian Wearable Art Festival recently.

Murphy’s dress, which took just over 400 painstaking hours to knit, was runner-up in the category of Sustainable Nature.

She said the process took many months of experimenting before reaching completion.

Having learnt how to sew as a child,  without any formal fashion designing training, Murphy said she learnt from what the best in the industry had to offer, namely her family.

Murphy arrived in Gqeberha as a little girl from Italy, and obtained qualifications in floral art, bridal arranging, bouquets and Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging).  

She owned and ran a successful florist in Gqeberha for 12 years before emigrating.

The competition is held annually at Eumundi on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, but was cancelled during Covid-19.

The garment, named Australia — Our Land, presents the harsh and unforgiving landscape and depicts the extremes of droughts, fire, floods and cyclones that wreak havoc on the country and its people.

“I decided to enter a competition in Mandurah in 2019, the Wearable Art Mandurah, because the wearable art movement is very strong in Australia.

“Sustainable nature is very challenging as everything that you choose for your garment has to be 100% biodegradable.

“For my cape, I chose skeins of raw raffia that I knitted into a cape to look like chain mail.

“The kaftan was of natural undyed yellow raw silk that I had printed and painted with dyes made from bluegum, cottonwood, black plums, beetroot, flower petals and turmeric,” Murphy said.

The headpiece is made with wreaths of honeysuckle vine.

Murphy said that was the base for the bones, burnt sticks, shells, driftwood, raw wool and dead grass used.

In June she was a finalist in an exhibition in Tasmania called Paper on Skin where the garment had to be 80% paper, worn and modelled on the body.

“When the cape was dropped off the shoulders, it was meant to show the beauty and rebirth of nature and hope in both the land and its people.

“It was satisfying to be acknowledged. The aboriginal model [the brown snake design] was perfect and shone with grace and beauty. 

“Painting on the model’s face and hands depicted the past and the future and could only be applied by an aboriginal woman,” Murphy said.

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