“Their Fall/Winter collection for men has a richness and depth that I found very attractive,” he says. “There is just enough design to be interesting without overwhelming the wearer. And their fabrics have a certain ruggedness which never comes off as tough. Individually, the pieces seem to have already lived a life.”
    That is not to say that Dunn has read a lot of John Ruskin and longs for some pastoral past. Her aim is to mix the traditional with the modern. “I love natural things in their raw and naked form,” she says. “Nature is often imperfect and irregular. I am fascinated by the contrast between a thing that is refined and something that is poor and destroyed. However, these natural elements are interesting when worked against modern techniques and forms that are urban and relevant to daily life.” Steel agrees: “My feeling is that the garments may be drawing inspiration from the 19th century, but only a slight whiff of that epoch remains.”
    Dunn is an accidental designer and is more concerned with expressing her creativity through making clothes. “I didn’t really decide to become a designer,” she says. “It was more of a natural evolution from what I was doing, which at a very young age was photography, drawing, and painting.” Why clothes, then? “Contrasts, silhouettes, and forms always fascinated me and I was more interested in expressing that through a medium that was more tactile, more malleable, and accessible by all.”