She loves Paris, Paris loves her

Frances Howie

After British Vogue named her as one of eight young designers to look out for, and fashion heavyweights Julien McDonald and Roland Mouret admired her graduate show, it wasn't surprising that New Zealand designer Frances Howie had some of the world's top fashion names wanting her to work for them.

The 25-year-old, whose designs now grace the bodies of the likes of Nicole Kidman, Kate Moss and Chloe Sevigny, won the Smirnoff International Designer of the year in 2001, so she was never going to be one of Auckland University of Technology's usual fashion graduates.

The design award, the most sought-after student prize in the world, gives the winner automatic acceptance into the masters programme at the prestigious St Martins in London - the school where Stella McCartney, among others, studied.

Howie began her two years there in 2002 after a stint as assistant designer with Kiwi label Sabatini and found the London experience quite different to studying here.

"From day one, they basically told us we were going to fail," she laughs. "And then we all failed our first assessment and had to re-do it. You went in there thinking that you were good - it's probably one of the hardest courses in the design world to get in to - but after the first week you realise that you're not that good at all and by the time every assessment comes you are sure you are going to fail."

Many students did, and the initial intake was whittled down to the few who could handle the pressure. "I never thought I wouldn't finish it, but I can honestly say it was by far the hardest two years of my life."

She was then courted by some of the world's leading fashion houses, including Matthew Williamson, Donna Karan and Alberta Ferretti.

Howie has made her home at Paris-based Lanvin, which was established in 1889. Lanvin is France's oldest couture house, and is undergoing a renaissance largely due to the vision of head designer Alber Elbaz.

The label is in the same league as McQueen and Galliano when it comes to A-list eveningwear, and the collection at last month's Paris Fashion Week was picked as one of three stand-out shows. Howie is one of Elbaz's four design assistants.

While she is remarkably humble about her job - "I basically sketch and come up with ideas to design and research and then I work with the workroom to create the ideas" - there are times when Howie is blown away by just how influential her position can be.

"I had designed a dress which the company was a little bit unsure of," she says. "We went on to produce it, and it was shot in Harper's Bazaar and Vogue, and was described as one of the best pieces of the collection. I think that's probably one of the achievements I am most proud of."

Living in Paris has provided her with challenges, the most difficult being the language barrier.

Lanvin initially organised a vigorous schedule of French lessons for four hours a day, but it was too much on top of Howie's busy workload. "I just felt like a zombie," she says. "Alber [Elbaz] said to me that he walked past me in the street and said 'Hi Frances, how are you?' and apparently I just didn't even respond. I just kept walking in this kind of coma or trance!

"At the beginning it's very, very hard. Everything is new, you've got nothing to fall back on. It's been impossible ... If you can't communicate with people, if you can't win people over, it makes it so much more difficult," she says.

"I think I've always felt that I was the sort of person who could talk to people - and I could speak well and find a way of winning people. But here you can't; people just aren't impressed from the outset - they think you're uneducated and poorly cultured."

But Howie wouldn't want to be anywhere else. "I do love Paris - who doesn't?" She also loves her job, and the occasional perks that go with it.

"I went to a gala on the Champs Elysees a few weeks ago and I was surrounded by a sea of famous people. It's the kind of thing you would see in magazines. Claire Danes was dancing on the tables, Anna Wintour [editor of American Vogue] was there. It really was strange to think I was there."