KEY POINTS:
It's been a while since dreadlocks were considered fashionable, but the fashionable might just be seeing some tomorrow. Or something like them anyway because Cara Cotton, designer of the Cherry Cotton Candy label which shows tomorrow afternoon at Fashion Week, has found inspiration in them.
But mention dreadlocks to her today, and the young, curly-haired designer, who puts the label together with the help of mentor Tanya Carlson - from whose workroom the label comes - begins to laugh.
"Well, no," she chortles, "we probably won't have dreadlocks on the runway as such, but there might be something along that line, with fringes and plaits and a little bit of matted hair."
So don't worry about models channelling US Vogue's editor-in-chief Anna Wintour's rumoured one-time squeeze, Bob Marley. Because, as Cotton says, dreadlocks are only part of the inspiration for next winter's collection.
It's actually more about interesting and varied looks such as those popularised by Boy George, back in his Culture Club days, and another 80s group Haysi Fantayzee, who were a sort of avant garde, art-punk group around at the same time.
They had a hit with Shiny Shiny, and their style at the time, which included matching dreadlocks, has been described as "glamorous ragamuffin".
Combine all that with Cotton's other inspirations - Japan's wildly mixed and matched Harajuku girls, as seen dancing with popster Gwen Stefani, and the Little Rascals cartoons - and those unexpected dreadlock references start making fashion sense.
"I started reading Boy George's biography and I found it really interesting that he denied being a style icon, saying that that wasn't really him, it was a costume.
"It got me thinking about how every day we do wear a kind of costume. I was also thinking about how everyone's doing all these bright colours, that 90s rave thing, and I wanted to move away from that a little, so I went more towards dancehall and reggae."
"I'm a bit of a magpie and I think inspirations for design come from all sorts of places, from everyday sights you see, from movies, songs, what certain people in Dunedin wear.
"So you pull all these bits and pieces out and somehow they always link together in the end."
The Cherry Cotton Candy label, which is designed in a collaborative process in the Carlson workroom, is streetwear with a high fashion edge.
Cotton says things are less cutesy and more subdued this season, but there's always been a vintage, 50s teenager look to it.
Which is why, besides being stocked around New Zealand in skate and surf stores, it is also available in the likes of Elizabeth Charles, an American boutique specialising in New Zealand and Australian high fashion.
"There are a lot of sports brands who are now doing their own fashion labels," says Cotton.
"Whereas we are coming from a fashion design workroom but doing a version of the same thing."
Despite such highlights as being approached by international fashion website Daily Candy (www.dailycandy.com), and having the likes of Hollywood actress Michelle Pfeiffer buy their leopard-print coat, it hasn't all been easy since the label's first collection for the winter of 2005.
Soon after that, Cherry Cotton Candy looked like it would be wound up.
A big reason is the continuing battle over naming rights with another local label, Helen Cherry.
Helen and Chris Cherry, who own the Helen Cherry and Workshop labels, thought there might be a conflict with the names.
"They thought that people might think it came from Helen Cherry's business," Cotton says.
"We completely disagreed with them."
The brand name came about because it was a combination of Cotton's surname and the first name of Cherry Austin-Spivey, who did the graphics for the label and now works as a tattooist in Dunedin.
"It was cute and it also seemed to reflect the feeling of the label.
"But we never would have picked it if we knew it was going to cause conflict with anyone else."
Initially this meant that, despite good feedback from their first show at Fashion Week in 2004, Cotton and Carlson decided it made better sense to put the label on hold.
"It was going to be a lot of effort and money to put into branding if we weren't going to get to keep the name," the 26-year-old designer explains.
So last year, when it seemed nothing was going to happen in the immediate future and they were told they could keep trading under their name, Cherry Cotton Candy became a collection once more.
"People were still ringing up asking for it, so we decided to keep going.
"And the court case still isn't resolved, which goes to show how long these things can go on."
These matters are probably the last thing Cotton and company will be thinking about tomorrow when the collection is shown as part of the Carlson runway show.
"Sometimes it's really hard when you're doing a show, especially when a little bit of self doubt creeps in," says Cotton.
"You start questioning everything. But then you stop and you remember why you're doing it," she laughs.
"Because it's fun!"
And with pseudo-dreadlocks, mixed up outfits and artfully painted fingernails, that's exactly what the Cherry Cotton Candy show is going to be.
