If there is a fashion brand that embodies the smart, playful spirit of Ensemble, it would have to be Twenty-seven Names.

Rebecca and I both wear their clothes a lot; when we worked in an actual office, often we’d message to check if the other was planning to wear a TSN print or green corduroy or coat or other fun ensemble that day. The Wellington-based brand launched in 2005 and was built on the friendship, and yin and yang personalities and tastes, of its founders Anjali Burnett and Rachel Easting. Sound familiar?

In a sea of minimalism and facades of shiny perfection, TSN – and I like to think Ensemble – is the earnest, spirited, colourful and slightly imperfect antidote (see Anj’s talk about Elaine Benes’ ‘little grace’ below). I’ve always said that they make clothes for short people – rare – and people with bums – even rarer! Or maybe they just make clothes for me.

So when I was thinking about Ensemble’s final stories, I knew Anj and Rach had to be included. And I knew they would have Reference Points that truly balanced our tagline of intelligence and whimsy, and girl, did they deliver with sentimental nostalgia, art history, humour, and complicated feelings about consumerism and the fashion industry that we have spent our entire careers in. These are the types of conversations I’ve been lucky to have with them both often over the years – similar to the ones I’ve had most days with Rebecca over five years of Ensemble.

Anjali Burnett 

My mum

Sandhya immigrated from Mumbai to Gore in 1979 and had me and my brother, Jason, in very quick succession (Saraid de Silva’s Amma hit quite hard…). Our clothes were a mixture of ‘anything goes’ from the Just Kids sale rack, offbeat finds from the Karori Op-shop, and her clothes. Jason and I used to fight over this very disco shirt she had. I can still feel the pinch of a striped bodysuit that was my prize possession, which I found on the sale rack at North City Plaza in Porirua. We didn't have much as kids but this was peak excess for me. Sandhya bestowed upon me the patience and knack for thrifting which I wear like a badge. 

READ MORE: My mother, my self: What she taught me about style

Third wave feminist art 

I joined Rachel’s Art Theory class at Polytech and was introduced to the Guerilla Girls, Barbara Kruger, Kara Walker, Judy Chicago – their commentary and work still resonates today. ‘ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE’. The sheer volume of conversations Rachel and I have had about the prevalence of low-rise jeans, don’t even get me started. We actually got a cease and desist from Jenny Holzer’s legal team in like 2007 (which is probably the most Stolen Girlfriends Club thing that has ever happened to us) because of a T-shirt from one of our first collections as Twenty-seven Names in 2010. Whoops.

Elaine Benes 

As illustrated in our Yada Yada collection in 2018. This press release, still some of my best work. As a character, I can totally relate to the ‘little grace’ vibe of Elaine, and like me she has no business working in fashion but that’s where she’s found herself.  

OutKast

My aforementioned brother introduced us to Outkast in the 90s, it’s actually (deep cut) where Rachel’s nickname Ray-Ray comes from (the Kim & Cookie interlude from Stankonia). We always got told as teenagers ‘to not put all your eggs in one basket’ AKA you guys won’t be able to make anything of this weird art/fashion adjacent friendship, that’s not real life. Well we showed them (JK, JK, JK). Being one-half of something rules. Rachel and I are very, very different and I would never dare to compare ourselves to music’s most formidable duo. BUT I do love how they represented a pair who were really different from each other, similarly great, but they let each other be themselves and, well, you love to see it.

No Logo by Namoi Klein 

I read her seminal work in 2005, the year Rachel and I first started working on Love-Lies-Bleeding [TSN’s initial name; changed in 2007]. Klein’s descriptions (and graphs) of the system of control of that is corporate marketing, and the insidious practices of Super Brands was formative in the ethos of our brand and work together. It informs our local manufacturing practice, transparency, casting and communications. 

Rachel Easting

Monet

Anj remembers the first time she came to my house to play, I got out the museum guide for the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. I don’t actually remember this, but it tracks. I was obsessed with the paintings of the impressionists at a really young age, and used to pore over books and find the similarities and differences in a series of paintings. I have always loved the light and the texture, the frothiness of the clothing and the luxuriant fabric evoked by the paint. 

Paris

When I was 11, living in the UK for half a year, my dad Robert took my older sister Caroline and I to Paris for three days. We visited virtually every Parisian museum or monument possible and it blew my mind. I remember deciding I wanted to be an artist while visiting the Musée Rodin. It shaped the course of my interest in art and fashion, and I hope to do the same for my kids one day.

Art school

I studied sculpture at the Dunedin School of Art, straight out of high school. Anj was studying fashion design, and the whole beginning and birth of our business was there during that time. I think the ability to be so luxuriously focused on being creative for four years there was so influential in the way I work and how I like to design. Colour, texture, humour, volume, and self expression – all things that I was exploring, and continue to explore today.

Sylvie Fleury

As an artist Sylvie Fleury is a standout for me. Her work is slick, humorous, engaging, colourful and always a surprise. Her sculpture and installation works are beautiful and so clever at skewering the capitalist and patriarchal system in which we are all trapped.

Tokyo

Travelling with Anj has been one of the biggest pleasures of my life. Japan, and Tokyo in particular, opened another mind blowing experience in my early 20s. The food, people, culture, and – above all – fashion there, are just such an influential part of how I love to dress. How I choose colours, textures, silhouettes has been shaped by these trips together.