NOV 1st Let me tell you a little story about a pair of trousers I coveted at 15. Keanu Reeves was wearing them in the most delicious black and white poster that adorned my wall. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Keanu – but it was those trousers that truly ‘had me at hello’. Tweed, pleats, waisted, structured, beautifully finished at the hems with deep cuffs, I was in love. I needed them in my life and my grandmother, an impeccable seamstress, was happy to oblige. What she created was perfection. The pleats exacting, the cuffs crisp, the fabric fell neatly from the structured waistband – BUT that structure, that beautiful beautiful waistband structure showed no mercy. It cut me...
OCT 25th The Cropped Linen Jacket was first a ‘One of A Kind Wednesday’ – remember those? We started there together You, me and this little jacket that could. We’ve journeyed together through this year haven’t we? From One of a Kind Wednesday Jacket to a debut collection at Fashion Week and now beyond. Like a proper big girl jacket in a proper big girl production run and a proper big girl business. Hanging each little ‘jacket that could’ on the racks this week reminds me as I face another mountain and point of change in my business, that big things start little – start the sketch, start the first off, make the phone call, put it out there,...
JUN 13th Ana on a fabric sampling trip for Tonic & Cloth When I first met Ana, I was on a mission to find a sustainable factory in India with empowering women at it's heart. Through a friend of a friend and an acquaintance of an acquaintance - and several months of emails we finally sat together in a sun drenched Hawkes Bay cafe. She was on a two month visit back in her Aotearoa - having moved to India 8 years earlier with her hubby and three kids. With smiling face she tells me, "it was the food, we've always loved Indian food". But this comment, peppered with a warm giggle belies the bigness of her heart, and the...
JUN 12th I’m no Eco warrior. I’m open and interested, but I’ve failed more times than I’ve succeeded. My compost bin got off to a flourishing start until hubby moved it to mow the lawns – it’s been in pieces since then. I can’t work out how to click it back together. And then there was the worm farm massacre of 2015, need I say more. I learn at a snails pace. The seeds of change grow slow in me; at times dying off in harsh, drought-like conditions before they even sprout. The first time I came across organic cotton I was in London on my big OE – drawn into an exhibition up a tiny side street. Some...
JUN 11 There's something to be said for a moderate level of gaminess. It has an endearing quality. Think Cindy Crawford's mole, or David Beckham's gnarly recognizable vocals. Me? I knit gammy (or so I have been informed). Admittedly that's not my only gammy trait, but one that connects me to my heritage - so I'll wear it proud. Apparently my gammy knitting has all to do with the kack-handed way I hold the yarn and then twist it around the needle. To the graceful knitter watching me clickety clack is terribly unappealing. But, I have it on good authority that I produce a beautiful stitch uncannily like that of my great grandmother (Oma). And that my friends, is...
