Cupboard love: Denise L'Estrange-Corbet

By FIONA HAWTIN

It's confirmed. Designers have bigger wardrobes than the average family household combined. Of course, the sheer volume is an occupational hazard. We have opened the wardrobes of three designers taking part in this year's New Zealand Fashion Week, who are more used to thinking up what we should have in our wardrobes than worrying about what's lurking at the back of theirs.


Denise L'Estrange-Corbet keeps her evening clothes in wardrobe number five. That's down the stairs past the mounted giraffe head and neck, and into the spare room.

"When we moved in, we were very lucky, there were wardrobes everywhere," she says of the house she shares with husband and World partner Francis Hooper.

They house a collection of vintage pieces and World designs. There is a lot of black but there's also a lot of colour, some of it too bright for cautious dressers.

"We think we're very normal. People do say, 'You're quite eclectic and different the way you do things'. But to us, it's just the way we are, we're not trying to be anyone.

"I buy clothes because I love them. But I'm not a big clothes buyer."

By day, L'Estrange-Corbet will wear World black pants and T-shirts when she's in the workroom far from public view. So far, so normal. But at night she dresses up, something that's not so normal in this era of smart casual and skimpy little dresses and bare legs.

"I do love the glamour. I love the dressing up. All these grungy ripped T-shirts ... that's fine if you're 19 because you can get away with it. Some people are so dressed down they're verging on bag lady. When you dress up, people comment, 'Oh wow, you look amazing' because you've made an effort."

For evening, her theatrical wardrobe comes into its own. She'll throw any number of the World coats over the top of the black pants. Such choice. There's the silk coat in hot pink, blue or green; the orange velvet coat called Bacall she wore to Paul Holmes' wedding; the full sequinned jacket; and the cream silk coat she had to finish in the taxi that took her to collect her Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit honour last year. There's the barrister's robe made for a Rev Dr Cumming Thom. It was the elegant yet plentiful tassels that caught her eye. "I like tasselling and I love beading, embroidery, opulent fabrics, really rich velvets and silks."

Dressing up is not something that is confined just to evening. She'll happily wear her silk coats to work every day, saving the delicate pieces from her extensive collection of vintage clothing from fleamarkets, auctions and Salvation Army shops around the world for something more special. She refuses to buy anything that's in a bad way just for the sake of having it. Her wardrobe may be of historical interest but it's got to be wearable - that's a rule. Once acquired, she looks after it well.

Forward planning goes a long way. If L'Estrange-Corbet knows she wants to wear something, she'll take it out, air it and fluff it up if it's something with feathers. The fragile stuff lives folded on shelves beside a tub of Damp Rid and she'll never throw something on the floor.

"I don't care if it's 5 o'clock in the morning."

Mid-trawl, she comes across something unfamiliar.

"What's that? Oh yes I remember buying this now," she says, unwrapping an intricate black cape.

There's the pretty skirt she made from a crib surround, the embroidered putty-coloured scarf that often doubles as a throw over tables, the black capes L'Estrange-Corbet knows so well, especially the one with the secret pocket between the cape and the lining.

"People just don't make things like that anymore. It's quite a lost art. I love ferreting. It's just seeing the potential because it's about styling. People have got that thing that they have to buy an outfit from Prada then people will assume they're wealthy and successful. I don't think that at all. The whole point of style is you can wear anything and it's a brooch or a ring or a handbag or a pair of shoes that will tell someone you're quirky and individual.

Today's quirk indicator would be the orange Hermes slippers with hot pink lining she's wearing. Although she's far from being a label queen, she does have a fondness for good shoes. "I spend money on good shoes because I can't make shoes."

She tells the story of Aerosmith's Steve Tyler coming into World. Her eyes went past the jeans and T-shirt he was wearing and rested on his amazing crocodile shoes. "Ooh, you're a rock star," she thought and gave him full marks for wearing them in the most casual way.

"I think clothing's for everyone. Fashion's for the youth. You've got to know your limitations and know what suits you. When you're older, it's about finding your own style, finding what you like and what you're comfortable in.

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