Annabelle Drumm has been based in Sydney, New South Wales (NSW) Australia for around 20 years. Born in New Zealand to a musician/conductor father and a professional artist mother, Annabelle grew up surrounded by colour, textures and music.

Her mother, Pamela, ran a fashion column in a wide reaching, national magazine when she was a young, unmarried woman in the 1960’s. As a wife and mother, she was courageous in experimenting with spinning, dyeing, weaving, knitting, crochet, tapestry, macrame and wall art. Memories still linger of disgusting dye smells coming from the large aluminium pot on the stove. She was a superb sewer and milliner making clothes that were practical and sometimes astounding works of art. (Annabelle still has a hand spun and woven ¾ length coat made from black sheep wool and hand dyed cobalt blue yarn her mother made.)

Watching and being a part of these fascinating projects in work and play had a big influence on Annabelle.

Her mother taught Annabelle to knit and purl when she was about 5 years old but she soon discarded it, preferring sewing for a quicker result. Making minutely detailed dolls clothes progressed to making an enormous wardrobe for herself once she was earning her own income. In those days, Vogue would regularly publish sewing patterns from top European and American designers such as Givenchy, Karl Lagerfield and Anne Klein, all of of which ended up in her wardrobe.

More people were sewing their own clothes in those days so it was easy to find locally sourced, high quality, affordable fabrics. Heaven!

A regular day job was never going to appeal for long and soon, she journeyed to Los Angeles Dance Academy for training, returning to New Zealand and co-founding a small, professional dance company. This company provided entertainment for festivals, themed events and corporate entertainment. It was a great opportunity to put the design and sewing skills to use in lavish costume making. Dance costumes are often colourful and glamorous but, no matter how delicate or skimpy they appeared to be, hard wearing durability was of utmost importance. Dance costumes are stretched to the extreme, sweated over, grabbed, rubbed against, caught in the rain, under UV light and, of course, they cannot afford to become a “wardrobe malfunction” joke at the expense of the dancer. (Scroll down to continue…)

“Art is art concealed” so the saying goes. DrummRoll design continues with the principals of:

1) Making garments that look effortless whilst hiding a solid construction

2) Having fun making economical materials look far more expensive.

3) Stylish, elegant designs which turn heads but are not so loud as to upstage the wearer.

4) Adding humour and playfulness to your wardrobe that everyone can enjoy. 

Annabelle Drumm married and raised two children, now grown into amazing, creative young men. Retiring from dance, she became a Booking Agent/Manager for performing artists building out her agency to cover 5 cities in Australia and New Zealand. The next 10 years were as a Creative Business Coach helping many types of creative professionals grow their business or career.

She worked as a Breakfast Radio Presenter for 7 years – you’ll find some of her interviews still available online – and she continues to keep her finger in the show business pie as a Theatre Critic.

The Covid lockdowns were the perfect opportunity to pick up the knitting needles. Once the decision was made to start designing again, after so many years, the ideas started to pour out each morning when she woke up. Annabelle is delighted to share her ideas with you and hope you enjoy knitting and wearing them.

Keep in the loop with new designs as they are released by subscribing to Annabelle’s newsletter here on the site. You have the opportunity to choose if you want all the blog articles or just the designs as they are released. (Scroll down to continue…)