My Life So Far - Rose Chong

The Age

Tuesday December 4, 2007

Liz Cincotta

Melbourne costume designer Rose Chong, 62, has been a Fitzroy resident for 25 years. Her iconic Gertrude Street store is home to more than 30,000 costumes.

How did you get into costume design?

It must have been a happy accident. I was hanging around the Pram Factory - a theatre group in Carlton - because I had a friend there and there were costumes to make so I put pins in my mouth and a tape measure around my neck and started making costumes. I had been an apprentice dressmaker in London and then I went to arts school.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in England in the '50s. I had a 19th-century Victorian girls' style upbringing with an emphasis on table manners and deportment. There were special fish knives to eat fish fingers with and lots of secret gardens.

I'm one of four. My father was a pilot. He was in the air force so I went to about 14 different schools. I spent most of my childhood on an aerodrome. That's how I can live in Fitzroy; I can handle noise.

Did you dress up as a child?

I was always the girl in the school uniform that didn't match everybody else's because we moved schools so many times. I was always in bottle green when everyone else was in blue. I think I'm actually a late developer in terms of dressing up. I went through a wanting-toconform stage, which I've happily outgrown. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to look like everybody else, but never did.

What was family life like?

It was pretty much standard. There was a fairly oldfashioned way of thinking. Girls were not ever expected to do anything other than be a wife, but I think I was the last of that generation. My parents used to say to me, "Don't make an exhibition of yourself." I think I've spent my entire life making an exhibition of myself.

You once received an AFI award for best costume design. How did that make you feel?

I received it about 20 years ago for costumes in What the Moon Saw. It was quite an engaging little film. I knew I was nominated, but I didn't imagine that it would be me. I didn't work for a year afterwards because people thought I was going to be too expensive.

Tell me about your surname.

I was living in Cambridge in England and a dashingly handsome Malaysian Chinese prince knocked on my door. He was supposedly just looking for digs. To everyone's amazement, 35 years later, we're still together.

That's how I've got a Chinese surname.

We had a show recently called Chose Rong the Musical. I was behind the counter one day and some people came in and said, "We want tickets for Chose Rong" and I said, "I'm sorry, they're sold out." They replied, "But we're friends of Rose Chong." They thought they could bluff their way through because they were expecting Rose Chong to be a little Chinese person. But they said it to my face and were sprung.

Do you have children?

I've got four sons, four granddaughters, three daughtersin- law and two nieces all living within the local area, which is absolutely fantastic. My passion at the moment is being a granny and I'm a seriously silly one. I do make them costumes.

What's the strangest request you have had for a costume?

Some years ago a Western District farmer, a Malcolm Fraser lookalike, came in. There are people that don't really want to get dressed up so we've got some stock standard costumes. We went through all of those and he said, "Um, actually, I was thinking of Margot Fonteyn." So we fitted him up as Margot Fonteyn and he looked pretty damn beautiful. -- LIZ CINCOTTA

LINK

rosechong.com

© 2007 The Age

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