KEY POINTS:
1950s bathing suits are wonderful. I'd sometimes wear one to serve at our shop in the late 1970s. Of course, vintage pieces were easier to find then. Today, most of what's around is 80s stuff, which is a shame. The real gems are few and far between.
As a little girl I loved classic colours and would change clothes about eight times a day but I was too lazy to take the original garments off. A forerunner of layering, I guess. Ladylike girls didn't wear trousers when I was growing up. The girls down the street were allowed to wear jeans, but not me - that was my mum's old-fashioned sensibility, partly to do with appeasing her own mother, I think. In 1969, when I was 11, my aunt sent me a pair of paisley flared hipsters from Carnaby St - my first long trousers. I absolutely adored them.
When my partner Michael [Cox] and I met in 1977 we both had inconsequential jobs, but we shared an aesthetic and both wore 40s and 50s vintage clothes. Michael had a passion for collecting memorabilia and we just launched into our own business when I was 19.
I taught myself to sew and we sold second-hand clothes, as well as producing some items Michael especially loved; a high-waisted 50s men's swimsuit like the ones worn by Charles Atlas, a Mexican wedding shirt with really complex pleating and naval trousers with a flap-buttoned front and a lace-up back. They were pretty out-of-synch with the 1977 market; and not a very practical thing for us to start with.
Cats are smooth operators. I don't think it's a coincidence that a cat's cry sounds like a human cry. They've been around humans for thousands of years, and they know us very well. Michael and I have taken care of around 140 stray cats, and we haven't encouraged their breeding - we get the cat fixed, made comfortable and then see if we can find a home for it.
Fabrics really define what we do; we take our inspiration from the swatches of fabric the reps show us - that keeps the energy alive. We made a traditional QC's outfit for a client, which was such detailed work; but we couldn't be too inventive because the design has been virtually the same for centuries.
Making clothes for films can be a time-and-motion challenge, and you end up with some very last-minute deliveries, like the time we had to leave Anthony Hopkins suit [for The World's Fastest Indian] in a wheelie-bin outside the workshop for a courier to pick up in the small hours. We'd been working all night and were exhausted, so we arranged for it to be picked up from the wheelie bin, flown to Queenstown and helicoptered to Invercargill. But we heard when Anthony put it on he said: "Now I feel like Bert Munro".
I cried on Mother's Day. Mum passed on about six years ago, and she was a great inspiration for us kids, but she didn't get to live the life she deserved. It felt good; it's good to cry for your mum. Michael's mum passed on in February, too.
Seasons are a big problem in New Zealand. We've got an Indian Summer shirt range that fills the void after the summer sales, which happen way too early. The industry has a habit of moving the seasons on too quickly; selling off last season's clothing before the new season has even begun. That means the punters know they don't have to wait too long to purchase discounted goods. The only solution would be if the whole industry agreed not to start the summer sales until the end of February or March, for example.
It's hard to find a great assistant with industry knowledge and good initiative who won't just absorb all your teaching and then take off to set up their own label. It's a big problem in the fashion industry. About a year ago our assistant Nicky left to work in womenswear, which means now we're rushed off our feet; I do the accounts, I make patterns, I measure people up, oversee the purchase of the fabrics, even sweep the floor and drive deliveries.
* Claire Dutton and her partner Michael Cox, who founded fashion label Strangely Normal in 1977, create men's shirts, suits and bespoke tailoring for film, theatre and individual clients.
