Staying power

Liz and Neville Findlay from fashion label Zambesi. Photo / Babiche Martens

If a fashion label is only as good as last season's collection, then how do you keep one going - and successful - for 30 years? Ask Elisabeth Findlay, the designer behind Zambesi, and she will tell you about the magic of runway shows, the appeal of James Dean and why following fashion trends isn't always the best idea.

And while some will tell you that 30 is the new 20, there's absolutely no doubt that in this business 30 years is close to an eternity.

Right. So how do you keep it up?

In the case of Findlay, her creative Viagra is what she describes as the never-ending challenge.

"It's never finished," she has said in the past, "and that's why I love it."

You never feel like you've conquered the craft, Findlay explains today. "Every time we do a collection we are forever criticising it. And although I feel good about what I do, I also look forward to improving all the time," she explains.

"I always want a chance to do it better, to do it the best. And you get that chance every season. So it's always challenging and stimulating."

The challenge must have been particularly interesting in the early years. The Zambesi label started off on a home-made cutting table out the back of an old villa in Grafton, the Findlay's home at the time.

Elisabeth and her husband, Neville, an engineer by training who made her that cutting table, already had one boutique with the ignominious name of Tart. But Findlay spent more time buying labels she liked - Marilyn Sainty was one of them, the long-gone Elle from Hamilton was another - than making clothes.

However, the long-term plan was always to start a label and in June 1979, when she was pregnant with her second daughter, she started doing her own thing.

Though she clearly knew what she liked, Findlay, who used to love vintage shopping, had never had any formal training in dress making. But this may well be why she works the way she does.

Rather than radically change according to trends or seasons, Zambesi's design ethos tends to be more evolutionary, with one collection almost flowing into the other, a basic and consistent aesthetic signature.

As Peter Shand, who curated an exhibition called Edge of Darkness 2008 at the Auckland War Memorial in 2005 on the occasion of the label's 25th birthday, explains: "Liz's whole approach is like an object lesson in creative practice.

"It's dynamic, there are so many dimensions to what she's doing and thinking and they're all present in the process of design and all at play in her work. She tends not to serve a sense of season or fashion gimmickry. It's like she's taking people on a longer, slower journey than that."

A journey that has gone on for three decades. Today, the business employs around 50 staff, incorporates six shops (two in Australia) and there are literally thousands - around four thousand at last count - of patterns stored in their central Auckland workroom.

Elisabeth and Neville also always stress that they have a team, one which includes family (designer Margi Robertson who makes the Nom*D label is Findlay's sister) and friends plus their retail and design staff.

The latter range from their senior pattern maker, who is over 70 and has been with the company for over 20 years to Zambesi's talented menswear designer, Dayne Johnston, with whom Findlay now works closely. Originally from Dunedin, Elisabeth and Margi have a Greek family background - and basically there's a wee bit of a designer-clad Greek mafia vibe about them. Once you're in with this lot, you're in. And more than likely, you're well dressed for life.

Over the years, Findlay says the industry has changed a lot. There is much more focus on fashion in this country than there used to be - she credits New Zealand Fashion Week for a great deal of that. "The atmosphere was so different back then," Findlay recalls of her early days making clothes. "And nobody used to write up the shows. Today there's a lot more pressure, a lot more focus on presenting yourself to the media and everyone worries about getting a good write-up."

Nobody used to interview fashion designers all that much either, Findlay says. She herself found it strange when people started asking her questions about her work. "Because you have to start thinking more about what you do and analysing yourself." Which, she says, can be a bit odd when you have always worked on instinct.

So no matter what anyone says, Findlay's best advice to young designers - and this probably applies to creative types everywhere actually - is "be true to yourself.

"I think there's a lot of pressure on young designers these days. But you can't win every heart," she says.

So does Findlay herself ever get sick of the constant need for new ideas, the rush to get a collection made, the deadlines for the runway shows?

Well, apparently not when it comes to the runway shows. As a business, Zambesi has been a steady supporter of New Zealand Fashion Week, having shown every year. No doubt, this is partially because of clever and well-established relationships with sponsors who help to fund the events. But partially it is also because putting on a show is one of Findlay's favourite things. Despite the hassle and expense involved, and despite the fact that Zambesi is not really a particularly "showy" sort of label - although plenty of celebrities wear their clothes, they've preferred not to talk about it and have even kept much of their marketing in-house - Findlay likes the fact that a runway show brings about a kind of creative closure.

This year, the label will be showing the winter collection at New Zealand Fashion Week as usual. The name of the collection is Enigma and this is a reflection of the fact that its always been hard to define the Zambesi look.

Once, for a local magazine story, Findlay was asked whether she preferred David Beckham or James Dean. She replied that it must be James Dean. And her explanation as to why she liked the deceased actor rather than the squeaky-voiced footballer may shed some light on why Zambesi is the way it is.

"He's a god," Findlay said of Dean. "He was an unknown quantity, a bit of an enigma - and that's what appeals to me. I'm always attracted to people who capture your attention that way and are not as easy to read."

Interestingly this is also why people like Zambesi. As one enamoured international fashion editor put it a while back, "instantly recognisable but impossible to pigeonhole".

Additionally the iconic, very "New Zealand" nature of the Findlay's work, Shand said around the time of the exhibition, may have "something to do with the palette". But perhaps it also has to do "with an underlying strength, a certain edginess - not unlike the land itself in some ways".

Whichever way you look at it, there's no doubt that Zambesi has had an effect on the country's cultural and aesthetic landscape. Just quietly, some of the younger New Zealand designers have referred to the Findlays as "the godparents" of local fashion. Designer Kate Sylvester remembers visiting the Findlay's Takapuna store, Cachet, in her teens. "When we were growing up, Zambesi was awe-inspiring," she recalls. "I think credit should be given to them for the impact they had on New Zealand fashion. Zambesi set such a high standard and the fact that they had such a strong signature look showed us we could do that too."

On the final Saturday of Fashion Week loyal clients, staff, friends and members of the extended Zambesi family will get a glimpse of all that and more when Zambesi celebrates their 30 years with a special retrospective show. "It is almost like you're creating a kind of magic," says Findlay to explain why she enjoys the runway shows so much.

"I get a lot of pleasure from it and I really look forward to it. You work so hard at it. And then," she laughs, "it's all over in 20 minutes."

True, it can occasionally feel "like a bit of a treadmill" Findlay admits. "Sometimes it can be worrying too," she notes. "Because it isn't just about us. We have all the staff and the stores to worry about as well. And as I get older, I find it can be a bit physically taxing too," laughs the designer, who recently fell in love with her first grandchild, Bruno.

Which, just for one second, might give the more fickle glamoristas out there pause for thought. What? A granny designing my favourite label? Isn't fashion a game for the young, ambitious and utterly trendy?

But Zambesi has never really been a label to follow trends. Despite the fact that at one stage she felt so embarrassed about her lack of formal training that she did not feel comfortable calling herself a designer, Findlay has taken her own advice from the beginning. Over the years, she has grown more confident and much happier to do, more or less, what she wants. So she's not about to start worrying about following trends now. Or about the label losing its appeal for thrusting young hipsters. "It's not really trend-based, anyway," she muses. "We are just constantly adding on to what we already have. Anyway," she argues, "I think with Zambesi what people love about it is the familiarity. They look forward to the new season's collections but they don't necessarily want a radical change. It's more about a feeling, a way of dressing."

So for the time being, every new season will continue to hold a challenge and somewhere on the distant horizon there may even be the challenge of a Zambesi store in Europe; they've just taken on a new agent in London. As for the next 30 years, Findlay says, "I guess I might stop if I got bored. Or if it gets too hard. That time may come.

"But until it does I'll just keep going. It would be quite funny if I manage another 30 years, wouldn't it? Then again, just look at Viv [British designer, Vivienne Westwood]. Would she be 70 now?

"Anyway," she concludes with a smile, "what else am I going to do?"