Fashion industry working to pull ensemble together

By IRENE CHAPPLE

American Vogue magazine flicks open to reveal a sumptuous outfit by Jean Paul Gaultier.

White feathers sprout from the model's head and trail down her back like an Indian headdress while brocade and pearls pinch back acres of whipped cream skirt.

Turet Knuefermann leans close to the page and taps it with excitement. "Look at it! That's so incredible ... "

She wants something like this for her next Fashion Week show.

The 29-year-old produced a commercially sellable range for the last Fashion Week, under the label IPG (International Play Girl) and it sold. Masses, in fact, largely because of a white jumpsuit that showed loads of bronzed cleavage.

It captured the eye of British buyers and visiting stylist Rebecca Weinburg. IPG sales skyrocketed and truckloads of jumpsuits - in khaki too - will stock London shelves next season.

Now Knuefermann, who won the inaugural Fashionincubator Fashion Entrepreneur award last year, is sewing outrageous outfits in her head.

She often stays up all night with cappuccinos and chocolate, drawing pictures, thinking up images, creating a vision of what will sashay down the catwalk for Fashion Week take three.

Because for her, it's going to be much bigger than ever before. Knuefermann, who for the past two years has participated in a group show, is going solo and intends to produce a haute couture collection.

"It won't have the retailer in mind whatsoever," said Knuefermann. "These will be pieces into which I put a lot of creativity, they will be show pieces that really give people something to watch."

Five years ago, Knuefermann was making streetwise and sexy clothes on order for friends, simply because it was fun and she could sew. The business just kept growing

Then came the first Fashion Week. Knuefermann threw money at it, spending about $8000 on sample materials

Lots of them too, so she could drape material around the mannequin to see how it sat, to see if the satin and ribbons would go together.

The event cost Knuefermann around $20,000, but she signed up three Australian and two New Zealand retailers as a result.

Even one would have paid the cost of entering the week, she says. IPG subsequently doubled its turnover.

The second Fashion Week again doubled IPG's sales and Knuefermann now produces around 4000 items of clothing a year, four times as many as two years ago.

But she remains squashed in a central city apartment in which you can hardly swing a roll of fabric. The tiny stairwell is cluttered with patterns and clothes, and we are banned from going into the workshop because you can barely open the door.

Knuefermann wants to rent a larger studio and has her eye on European and United States markets. Production, however, will be a problem.

She says she will probably have to expand production to Asia before selling into the United States is even an option.

And so Knuefermann reflects the dilemma of the industry.

After Fashion Week's media hype and free champagne frenzy settled, real money, and lots of it, flowed into the hands of New Zealand designers.

Paul Blomfield, author of an Industry New Zealand report estimating the designer fashion industry is worth around $160 million a year, believes that has leapt more than $10 million in response to the second Fashion Week.

Well-known labels such as Trelise Cooper, RJC, DNA and Sabatini are all reporting deals in the lucrative US, and British fashion chains such as Selfridges have also signed up young New Zealand designers.

Export sales in the designer end of New Zealand fashion are growing, and fast.

That is putting the CMT (cut, make and trim) industry under pressure.

"It is stretching it but it's not yet beyond the infrastructure [capabilities]," said Blomfield. "There is still a problem with the fact school leavers do not see clothing manufacturing as an attractive career path ... we need to make it attractive to people."

Blomfield has helped set up an industry group, Fashion Industry New Zealand, of which he is executive director. It is now doing an audit of the industry, identifying where the pressure is and how to alleviate it.

Blomfield said the report would be produced this month.

That investigation, he said, "has come about because of Fashion Week, because of the dramatic growth of the sector and its higher profile".

But, he added, "You don't want to stop your export growth while you think about your infrastructure. You want to be doing both simultaneously."

* This year's Fashion Week is October 19-24.