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He’s fashion’s secret agent, who deliberately flies beneath the style radar. Sharon Krum meets the Tasmanian in New York
 IF you own the hottest bag in the world right now, the Manolo baguette, then you know the accessory that costs up to $2500 was born at the Manolo headquarters in Rome.
 What you may not know is the name of the fashion doctor who delivered the idea of it to the fashion empire, resulting in one of the more spectacular accessory births of the late 1990s.
 He is Albert Morris, formerly of Hobart, currently of New York. He describes himself as an "ideas man", but that barely comes close to describing what he does.
 A former design director who runs his own company, Albert Morris Associates, he is one of the most sought-after fashion consultants in the trade. He travels the world (logging more than 300,000km last year) "sourcing", buying products, combing flea markets, searching for a germ of an idea to present to fashion houses always hungry for the next big thing.
 Morris might present them with a piece of antique fabric or a vintage shoe, and the design studio then uses the look, or the shape, or just the colour, as inspiration for a new product or collection.
 "I am an ideas person. I shop, I do the markets, I accumulate what I think is going to happen next in fashion and it’s up to them to create whatever is the next thing," he says.
 "Or I will find a supplier for fabrics or a new country to make accessories. For instance, I just came back from Vietnam, where I discovered they do brilliant embroidery."
 People who source for fashion designers are like a secret society. They fly deliberately below the radar, so as not to tip their hand to the competition. But Morris smiles when admitting, yes, he has spotted people who source for Prada and Gucci at the same New York markets he frequents.
 Morris cheekily declines to give his age, but with a bit of nudging admits to having worked for 35 years in the fashion business in the US. He left Hobart "when I was very young" to study fashion merchandising in New York, and worked as a shoe buyer and design director for several retailers before striking out on his own. He consults for four leading companies, including Manolo, working with them on ideas for accessories and ready to wear.
 "The idea for the baguette I found at a New York flea market. I found a bag that had that shape and presented it to the design director in Rome, Silvia Venturini Manolo," he says.