Yvonne Bennetti steps into Fashion Week

Yvonne Bennetti likes to combine luxury fabrics such as silk and cashmere with touches such as soft pleating or delicate embroidery in her designs. Picture / Carolyn Robertson

It's no wonder that Yvonne Bennetti's label feels as if it's been around forever. The Hong Kong-based New Zealand designer launched her label just three years ago, but her distinctly feminine clothing has a sophistication that more than hints at Bennetti's extensive experience in the rag trade.

Her finely polished first collection had some fashion insiders believing she could have launched at New Zealand Fashion Week from the moment she opened the doors to her Auckland store.

But Bennetti sagely held off. As with all decisions regarding the label, her delay was strategic.

"I wanted to make sure I could do it professionally and I wanted my first show at fashion week to be a really strong collection," says Bennetti, who will stage a solo show before international media and buyers tomorrow.

Bennetti is more than ready, confident she could supply a significant order from an overseas department store, if she is lucky enough to land one.

Her path to fashion week is unusual, though she has always worked with the best. After studying fashion design in Auckland, she landed a job as Trelise Cooper's assistant designer before moving to Hong Kong 10 years ago. Initially, she worked as a textile designer, supplying Italian design houses Blumarine and Etro, as well as New York-based labels Tibi and Isadora's Story.

Seven years ago she started her own textile design company, creating fabric for top Australasian labels such as Zambesi, Trelise Cooper, Helen Cherry, Akira Isogawa, Wayne Cooper and Collette Dinnigan.

A canny businesswoman, it has been a stellar rise for the textile designer turned fashion success story, though her upward trajectory has not been without its hitches. A year after opening her first store in Australia, Bennetti shut the doors to her Sydney shop. "That was a huge learning curve," she says. "My store in Auckland was an instant success so I went to Sydney with the same expectations. When that didn't happen I couldn't work out why. My formula was the same. Laterally, we are not very far away, we share similar ideas and beliefs in things but, incredibly, we're so different."

Rather than keep the flagging store in Paddington limping along, she decided to cut her losses and move on.

Bennetti, who originally went to Hong Kong with her airline pilot husband, has also faced changes in her personal life in the past year. The couple are no longer together, but Bennetti has chosen to remain in Hong Kong, where her label is produced.

"I'm very lucky to have a very supportive group of friends. We are all involved in production and we share our crazy stories throughout the day. They are like my family."

Colour and textiles have always played a pivotal role in shaping Bennetti's opulent collections. She scours the globe for inspiration, always carrying a digital camera to capture evocative images, often a vibrant colour that fires her imagination, sometimes a piece of antique fabric at a market stall.

As Bennetti spills the contents of her handbag on to the table at an Auckland cafe, she grabs a piece of jewel coloured velvet. "Look at this, isn't it gorgeous?" she says. "This is the sort of person I am. I've got all the colours for next winter's collection in my bag."

Bennetti is not afraid of colour, creating an overall style that somehow manages to be contemporary and classic at the same time. She likes to use luxury materials such as silk and cashmere, elegantly combining these fabrics with signature touches such as soft pleating or delicate embroidery.

As well as designing fabrics for her label, she has her own line of shoes. She began designing shoes for her own store, and earlier this year picked up an order from top New Zealand shoe retailer Scarpa.

"I saw an area of the market that could be filled in terms of shoes that were high quality, shoes that were interesting and innovative," she says.

"I'm totally passionate about shoes. Even when I was at design school I used to spend all my money on designer shoes. I was nuts about them. I would put them on layby because they were, even back then, $700 a pair."

As well as a network of close friends, Bennetti's sister Wende has joined her in Hong Kong, leaving behind a career in law in Auckland to help out with the business.

"Up until last year I have always done it myself and now I look back and think I don't know how I did it. I think I must have needed my head read," laughs Bennetti.

"Wende keeps me focused because I can be very sporadic. It is quite difficult for me to sit in one place for some time. I drive her mad because I'll work on a design for a week and she will ask if we are going ahead with it and I will say no, I don't like it any more. She just shakes her head, throws the paper on the desk and says, okay, fine. She's very intolerant of me. She says exactly what she thinks, which is good. You know where you stand."