Resort to it

If your idea of beach wear is boardies and a baggy T-shirt, don't expect an invitation to St Tropez, the Bahamas, or even Fiji's Denarau anytime soon.

Superyachts and cocktails by the pool demand a certain style, and that style is the antithesis of the typical Kiwi summer mooching-about gear.

However, there are certainly New Zealanders who understand the international dress code of cool known as resort wear.

Two of them are specialising in the appealing style of dressing that women are increasingly embracing year-round, and other leading Kiwi designers are including more than a touch of cruise in their collections.

It's all about easy elegance, affordable luxury and a clever layered approach that's as suitable for apres ski as sur la plage.

Aleida Harger has been making her "relaxed glamour" Louche label out of Hong Kong for nearly six years to a receptive Australasian and American market.

Though her clothing is usually considered warm weather gear, she sells it in Queensland and Queenstown. South Islanders pile it on.

"You'll have all the beautiful silk layering pieces and then knits layer over the top. Anyway, once you go into a bar it's boiling hot," she says.

Two selling trips back home each year keep her in touch with the local market and with family. She believes people want versatile, affordable clothes they feel comfortable in but that still qualify as "special pieces".

Aucklander Charlotte Devereux feels the same. The co-founder of successful maternity label Egg launches her first non-pregnancy range next month.

"I love designing clothes you can wear as a skirt or pull up as a tunic dress, then roll into a ball and put in your suitcase," she says.

But forget any images of crumpled cotton knit - what she's talking about is: "Luxury lace and beaded dresses you can wear a little more casually through the day, but that can take you through to a black tie event."

Effortless elegance is pretty much the definition of resort dressing. Throw in, as Harger says, the "grown-up bohemian, relaxed look". It's a style that was on display at the cruise collections in May.

For Gucci, Frida Giannini chose "stylish travel" as her theme, mixing khaki and neutrals, silk jumpsuits and beaded blush-coloured dresses, plus the obligatory bags and scarves.

At Chanel, the look for 2011 was vintage St Tropez - models barefooted in long kaftans in sunset shades and crocheted dresses, with enough sensible coverall white lawn cotton to ensure sales to the label's moneyed older followers.

Overseas cruise collections such as these offer a level of luxe - and price tags - that we seldom see in this part of the world. But the ethos of exotic ease is international, right back to when Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel first relaxed women's wear.

A shapeless kaftan and a rayon sarong just don't cut it. Embellishment is the name of the game. Jemima Khan left Imran behind in Pakistan, but she was smart enough to realise her London friends would appreciate the ton of tribal embroidery she brought back.

"Glamour is in the detail - we'll do a lot of beaded detail but it has to be quite subtle. You want to be able to wear it during the day," says Harger. On a trip to Sydney she combined denim shorts with a sequin cardigan for daytime city wear and then used the same cardie to dress up an evening look. The unstructured style appeals not just for value, but for the time it saves in having to come up with multiple outfits.

Retailer Carol Young of Verranda Young in Birkenhead Point echoes this, saying "A lot of my customers are travellers, they want pieces they can just combine". Accordingly, she stocks garments with year-round appeal.

Stores such as Browns in Remuera and Maggie Potter in Parnell also do this, knowing the value of trans-seasonal pieces to their clients.

Trelise Cooper brings out an entire high summer range after her main spring/summer collection, which is suited to the holidaying set. Bugle beading, bright solid colours and bold prints are hallmarks.

Other designers don't so obviously play to this market, but you'll find touches of resort style you can adapt in everything from Karen Walker's deep-crowned straw hats and giant sunglasses to Country Road's plaited leather and metallic summer shoes and Cybele's fluid silk dresses.

"My idea of resort wear," says Cybele Wiren, "is pieces that are cool and comfortable but transition easily from day to night."

Her summer range features dresses that would make perfect cover-ups over a swimsuit, but look great dressed up too. Wiren says she often gets feedback from customers who appreciate the value of a multi-tasking garment.

Devereux points out that an embellished floaty cruise piece costs considerably less than an evening dress, yet it can move from poolside, to a daytime layering piece over pants, to an evening drinks party.

"A lot of girls are going off to Fiji and wanting light pieces."

Mix and match is her preferred style of dress, something she says was reinforced when she was travelling while pregnant. As was the need for "things that don't cling, but are floaty".

She loves clothes with a Grecian feel and Chloe is a favourite label.

"I know if I'm comfortable I look and feel better."

Mixing fashion and practicality is something she's carried over from Egg, as is not being scared of an elastic waistband.

Harger is similarly relaxed. Sitting in a plane calls for comfort, she says. "I used to be like 'stretch denim is so uncool', but I'd never not wear stretch denim any more."

The two women share not only a similar approach to design and dressing, but also the assistance of inspirational mothers. Harger, aged 38, is the daughter of Wendy Hall, the designer behind Jag. Forty-year-old Devereux's businesswoman mother, Colyn Devereux-Kay, is her partner in Egg and a former head of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce.

Over the 10 years of developing Egg, which is stocked in Harrods and boutiques overseas, Devereux says she always intended to launch a fashion range. Freed from the need to keep things basic because pregnancy wear isn't for keeps, she has been able to explore her love of beautiful fabrics and detailing. Prices are not much more than $200.

She imports silks and satins and has the clothes made up in New Zealand, but despite the new range being labelled summer, she says it can be layered with soft knits and worn year round.

"You can put a maxi dress with a fur cape, or a T-dress with tights and a chunky knit, then in summer with a pair of strappy sandals."

Hers is a capsule collection: Dresses, skirts, top, pants, a tube-skirt-come-dress, kaftans and a bolero knit top.

"All those pieces that mix and match."

It will be available online and in Egg stores initially. The winter look is a little more body con, with stretch, fitting garments. Again in that flattering way."

Devereux took herself off to Leigh with 10-month-old daughter India last week. She wanted some unbroken days working on her winter range so Jasmin, aged 9, and son Sam, 6, stayed with their father in Auckland.

"At the moment I can't sleep, I've got all these ideas."

Harger credits time living in Los Angeles for her style direction. "In LA, there's sexy, dressed-up Hollywood glamour, but the weather's so good, so things have to be relaxed and easy. It's still very city, but with a relaxed ethos."

Louche is a label that recognises fashion has long since lost its obsession with structured garments - outside of the runways of Europe - and that the day/night and age divide has blurred.

The main difference between hers and European labels such as Day Birger et Mikkelsen and Marlene Birger, is that "we're more accessibly priced". Prices range from $200 for knits up to $400 for silk maxi.

A standout piece this season is a Moroccan-inspired lace dress that retails for $360. Harger puts her price control down to being close to where she has her silk, beading and knits manufactured in China. Fabric is sourced from the mainland and Japan.

She supports traditional craftspeople, having gained an early love of such work through a passion for vintage fashion.

"With every piece I design, I feel like I'm creating a piece of artwork," she says. "When I hear from customers how much they appreciate the quality and special touches, I really feel I've succeeded."

Undoubtedly her business acumen, perhaps absorbed from having two parents in the rag trade (father Kerry Harger designed denim), has helped.

"Originally I didn't want to get into fashion at all, I did architecture."

This didn't take, so she left New Zealand in the early 90s for London, where she graduated from the London College of Fashion before working for Whistles, Karen Millen and Jasper Conran.

"It was far enough away to do it on my own turf."

After seven years in London she took the expat route to Hong Kong before moving to New York to consult for Habitual, which then transferred its production and her to the west coast.

Although Louche launched in Los Angeles in 2005, Harger soon moved back to Hong Kong, where she has a studio employing five staff, with three in New Zealand and an agent in Australia.

Harger says her designs are very different from her mother's, but the women share an eye and an understanding for fashion.

Wendy Hall has lived in Hong Kong for some years also, running a production company for Australian and New Zealand designers.

Her vast experience in retail was invaluable when Harger started her label, and she is still a sounding board.

Retail is an area Harger is keen to get into one day, but for now, she's keen on entering Europe and rebuilding her American sales after the knock that came with the downturn in 2008. In Australasia, "unbelievably, we've grown" she says.

Trips back to New Zealand allow her to catch up with her father on his farm near Hamilton, with the next one planned for September, but clearly she thrives in the pressure-cooker atmosphere of Hong Kong.

Her safety valve is weekend getaways, so no wardrobe worries there. Harger finds it easier to escape the urban jungle in Hong Kong than in Manhattan.

"We go hiking in the hills every Sunday, it keeps your sanity."

Armchair travel

To see ranges and find stockists check out these websites:


charlottedevereux.com

loucheclothing.com
cybele.co.nz

trelisecooper.com
verrandayoung.co.nz