Yoke Har Lee: Design evangelist survives US setback

Clare Mora's export range includes light fittings and furniture. Photo / Babiche Martens

In 2007 Clare Mora was celebrating a coup - a big contract with a United States retail chain.

The company she founded, essenze, had won a deal to supply US$300,000 of David Trubridge designer lights to Design Within Reach (DWR), a US retailer with nearly 70 stores.

Mora was barely over the euphoria and forecasting sales of $2 million to $3 million, when the US economy imploded.

In six months DWR's share price plunged from US$4.50 to US17c, the chain cut its inventory levels by 75 per cent and it went through three management changes.

"That provided a huge set of problems for us," Mora says. Overnight the order books were empty and essenze's own fortunes unravelled when Mora discovered that large orders also meant higher risk.

While the US financial crisis nearly brought essenze to its knees, Mora is not letting the setback stop her mission of transporting Kiwi-inspired design to the world. The company acts as a marketer and distributor of products from more than 30 New Zealand designers, selling items including ceramics, furniture, light fittings and jewellery.

Now, still bearing battle wounds from the US financial crisis, Mora is back with a cornerstone shareholder and a highly focused plan. "It was a great learning curve for us," she says. "We realised DWR's risks were also our risks."

The company discovered that governance issues can hurt, "and the bigger the value of your contract and the more products you are making, that could hurt you more".

Taking on more personal debt and adding shareholder-mentor Stefan Preston, (previously chief executive of Bendon) has given Mora the financial backing and renewed conviction that her business model will work.

"We have always been successful in New Zealand. We are concentrating on making that more of a success. We want to open two more stores in New Zealand before heading offshore to open stores," Mora says.

As well as its shop in Parnell, Auckland, the company already has two stores in the US - one in Austin, Texas, the other in New York.

Mora's career in selling designer goods began when she took a suitcase full of New Zealand products to Germany, where she spent much of her childhood.

One lesson she has learned along the way is that no matter how attractive a design may be, you will not succeed unless you have a tight plan on how to scale it, produce it consistently and still be able to make a margin at the end of the process.

Selling lights to DWR on a large scale taught Mora that there are heavy operational and compliance costs in taking an authentic New Zealand product overseas.

In the case of the lights, US authorities needed certification before they could be used in a commercial setting, and a Singaporean certifier had to be found to do that job.

But she is now more excited than before and expects to see strong growth next year. This year growth will be up by about 40 per cent from 2008. "We have grown sales through local activity. Thanks to the belief Stefan has in New Zealand design - that's kept me going. We now have a finely tuned operation."

Preston, who is focused on several design-inspired and retail-based projects, says he is excited about the potential growth of essenze. He says there is a lot of potential in what Mora calls "commercial curation". "But it is unrealistic unless one can bring the commercial framework to it. The [essenze] brand is there, the foundation's there," he says, but there is still work to do.

For a small-scale operation, the hard part is maintaining the quality of manufacturing and the consistency of production, Preston says. For Kiwi designs to go global, there is a need to merge the yin and yang, he says - combining artistic flair with commercial skills.

One of the latest steps for essenze is launching its first range of woollen rugs, using CRONZ (Carpets and Rugs of New Zealand) in Christchurch as the manufacturer.

"I am excited about the whole story about wool - taking it from the outback of Christchurch to New York," says Mora. "In this area, New Zealand has done badly. We would like to see the combined value of design, add that to manufacturing at the conceptual stage to have a finished product."

Kiwi design is still relatively organic in appearance, reflecting Kiwi individuality, confidence and sense of freedom. "We should not lose this sense of individuality but streamline it." The end result of that process, she says, is still in the making.