New Zealand Style Week has returned after a one-year hiatus, with a brand new imaginative and prescient that’s public-facing relatively than unique.
On the inaugural New Zealand Style Week in 2001, Elisabeth and Neville Findlay tousled.
The Findlays, founders of Zambesi, the clothes model that just about single-handedly created New Zealand’s darkish and moody trend aesthetic, did not realise nobody had introduced any of the racks to hold garments on.
Patrons and trend editors, together with a big worldwide contingent, had been left ready for the present to begin on the Auckland Struggle Memorial Museum.
Hilary Alexander, a famed trend journalist representing British publications, recommended utilizing some trolleys she discovered to retailer the garments till somebody might bounce in a van to get the racks from Zambesi’s studio.
“That was hilarious,” says Elisabeth.
A number of issues have modified since that first New Zealand Style Week virtually 25 years in the past. With Zambesi’s development and abroad success, the Findlays are now not answerable for bringing the clothes racks.
What has additionally modified is the main focus of trend week. It was as soon as an unique occasion directed at trend editors, consumers and different {industry} varieties who ogled over collections not obtainable on the market to shoppers for six months.
New Zealand Style Week has had a couple of rocky years – in 2024 it was cancelled as a consequence of financial uncertainty and the lack or unwillingness of designers to fork out the price to be part of the occasion.
In 2023, the occasion returned to Auckland’s Viaduct Occasions Centre beneath new possession and administration following a three-year break full of uncertainty.
It was one in all many native occasions affected by Covid-19, having been postponed indefinitely in 2020, postponed once more in 2021 then finally cancelled in January 2022.
Throughout that point it was bought to Vancouver-based businessman Feroz Ali, who took the reins from founder Dame Pieter Stewart. Yasmin Farry was appointed as Style Week’s new basic supervisor.
A brand new-look trend week
In 2025, New Zealand Style Week is a consumer-facing occasion the place nearly all of exhibits are ticketed for public entry.
Whereas consumers and editors will nonetheless be there to eyeball tendencies, designers will showcase in-season collections with items which might be already obtainable for the general public to purchase.
There’s a festival-like really feel with a trend movie evening, panel discussions and a clothes swap for New Zealand designer items.
“Although there’s been a variety of information in regards to the challenges that designers are dealing with, the {industry} has come collectively to essentially placed on an occasion,” says Dan Ahwa, a trend journalist and stylist of greater than 20 years. He’s on the occasion’s artistic board, which has pushed the change that may launch subsequent week.
As proof of the occasion’s group spirit, Ahwa pointed to the return of Karen Walker, New Zealand’s most well-known designer. She is exhibiting at trend week for the primary time in a decade in a collaboration with Adidas.
“It’s an occasion that we may be pleased with. Sure, it’s trend week, however I believe town additionally wants occasions in Tāmaki Makaurau and celebrating town, discovering alternatives to get folks coming again into our retail areas and our hospitality environments.”
What are different trend weeks like?
Emma Gaultier is Parisian sample maker now based mostly in Auckland. She has labored for main trend homes together with Chloe, Louis Vuitton and Margiela, typically pulling all-nighters forward of a runway present when a artistic director has a final minute imaginative and prescient.
Paris has six trend weeks a yr: spring/summer season and autumn/winter for males and for ladies, and two high fashion exhibits, the place homes ship far-fetched, one-off items of artwork down the runway.
The occasions are closed to the general public, with unique seats reserved for trend editors like Vogue’s Anna Wintour and stars comparable to musicians Girl Gaga and Beyoncé. Patrons from shops, together with Harrods in London, usually go to a trend home’s atelier to do their orders for the approaching season.
“All of the world involves Paris. It’s completely loopy,” says Gaultier, noting the anarchy on the doorways of trend exhibits the place the general public can catch a glimpse of these with the unique ticket to enter.
She was stunned that the general public might purchase tickets to New Zealand Style Week, which has been more and more the case through the years. Tickets are additionally obtainable for some New York Style Week exhibits, an occasion that has additionally taken a public-facing flip in recent times.
“I believe it’s good as a result of everybody can go, however in Paris, I like the truth that it isn’t for everybody. It’s a part of the magic.”
Lifting the veil
As an alternative of locking folks out, REBE, one in all New Zealand’s rising trend labels, is inviting its devoted group additional into its course of. As an alternative of a runway present, the model is internet hosting a dwell marketing campaign shoot, says founder Rebe Burgess. The ticketed occasion is bought out.
“I like the truth that it’s type of letting folks into our world, seeing one thing that perhaps not everybody will get to see, and highlighting the group [models, makeup artists, stylists, etc] that works behind the scenes to carry our imaginative and prescient to life.”
The shoot will happen in “The Residence,” a penthouse in Auckland that the model is curating to mirror its aesthetic and ethos. The general public can ebook an appointment to go to the model’s set up and see REBE’s newest assortment.
There are solely a handful of tickets obtainable to Zambesi’s runway present. The occasion will happen at trend week’s predominant hub, Shed 10 close to Auckland’s ferry terminal, on Thursday evening.
“It is nonetheless the identical effort and inventive thought that goes into each present that you simply do,” says Elisabeth Findlay, of the similarities between a public and an industry-facing runway present.
“It is very satisfying. It is like a reward after producing the gathering,” she added.
It’s our hour to curate, to carry our world and our imaginative and prescient and what we make and create to the viewers.
Success at a brand new trend week
After all, promoting garments is a part of the equation that makes any trend week attainable, says Findlay.
“Your model is barely legitimate if it sells, I suppose.”
Nonetheless, as Zambesi is already a profitable label right here and abroad, Findlay views this yr’s trend week as a group gathering that may elevate new designers.
On the final day of trend week, a collection of design graduates shall be a part of a collaborative runway present. Style week has additionally waived the everyday $10,000 charge for designers to be concerned, says Ahwa.
Most tickets for runway exhibits begin at about $80. Two key income streams for the occasion are public ticket gross sales and sponsorship from manufacturers comparable to Porsche, added Ahwa.
Nipping at New Zealand Style Week’s heels for rising expertise is Te Wiki Āhua o Aotearoa, a “scrappy” and grassroots trend week that materialised final yr throughout the conventional occasion’s hiatus.
Harris Tapper, now a number one New Zealand model, is internet hosting one of many few invite-only occasions on the official schedule. Its presentation will happen in Blue, a Ponsonby bar, the place each ingredient from the scent to the sound observe to what drinks are served will mirror the theme of this season’s assortment. There’s room for less than 100 folks.
“…You’ll be capable to see the garments in situ, so to talk. You would think about your self in that area and in these garments and dwelling that life,” says model co-founder Lauren Tapper. She is a part of a panel dialogue on Friday afternoon titled The New Guard: Rewriting the Guidelines of NZ Style.
The vast majority of the garments Harris Tapper is showcasing are already obtainable on-line and at stockists. A small variety of new items shall be revealed on the occasion in addition to one-off creations that shall be priced on utility for consumers.
Leather-based equipment model Yu Mei (pronounced “you might”) is already in New York’s Bergdorf Goodman, the highest rung of luxurious shops. The Bergdorf consumers sought the model out for its buttery gentle and regionally sourced deer nappa, or leather-based, says founder Jessie Wong.
Exhibiting regionally at New Zealand Style Week is an opportunity to inform the model’s story to a neighborhood and dependable group, she added. The model has been concerned with trend week right here for a number of years and confirmed at Australian Style Week final yr throughout the hiatus.
“It’s our hour to curate, to carry our world and our imaginative and prescient and what we make and create to the viewers.”
