The artwork that features on some of this year’s Coomaditchie clothing line. Photo: Supplied.
Artworks from the Coomaditchie United Aboriginal Corporation’s NAIDOC Week exhibition are transformed into a vibrant clothing line each year, with this year’s theme and design, “Keep the Fire Burning – Blak, Loud & Proud”.
Coomaditchie centre manager Kristy Thomas said the clothing line first launched in 2018 and had grown from a simple T-shirt to celebrate Aboriginal culture to an extensive range including hoodies, pants, singlets, shorts, long-sleeve T-shirts, and the highly popular waterproof winter jacket.
Kristy said other products such as hooded towels, mugs, tea towels, cushion covers and toiletry bags had been added, along with a cotton range two years ago.
“They’re all Australian made, all the way down to the tag, so we’re trying to keep everything in the country,” she said.
“We just keep growing each year and the design for the entire range changes every year.”
Sisters Auntie Lorraine Brown and Auntie Narelle Thomas, who happens to be Kristy’s mother, are the artists behind this year’s designs, which began as artworks for a NAIDOC Week art exhibition.
They have incorporated the NAIDOC week theme “Keep the Fire Burning – Blak, Loud & Proud” into the design, which highlights the strength, resilience and pride of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
“They paint together and so they paint every year’s NAIDOC artwork, and that artwork is available for sale as well,” she said.
“Then we convert that artwork into product.”
One of the T-shirts featured in this year’s Coomaditchie clothing range. Photo: Supplied.
She said the initiative provided an opportunity to show support and appreciation for Australian Indigenous culture and heritage, showcase its artists and help the Aboriginal community organisation financially to support the work it does in the community.
“Our goal is to become self-funded, so that money will go into keeping our doors open because we don’t get money for admin, we don’t get money for a graphic designer, and so it fills the gaps,” she said.
“We do really well each year, but this year we’ve been a bit slower because we haven’t had the website up.”
She said the NAIDOC Week exhibition, which included the artworks that inspired the clothing line, would start 6 July and run for a week at the Port Kembla Servo Food Truck Bar.
“We have four generations of artists here, and all are part of the exhibition, including kids,” she said.
Kristy said the premier artists in the exhibition were Lorraine and Narelle, husband and wife Dereke Brown and Allison Day, Jessica Brown, Meahlah Langlo-Brown, Shane Brown and Tynan Lenihan, along with the younger generations coming through.
She said while people could access the merchandise online, they needed to go into the centre to view and purchase the artworks, which were available all year round at the centre outside of exhibition times.
You can purchase the official NAIDOC Week merchandise through the Coomaditchie online store. Stock is expected to arrive on 1 July. The Coomaditchie NAIDOC Exhibition will be on display at the Port Kembla Servo Food Truck Bar at 6-8 Wentworth Street from 6-14 July.
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