Trailblazers: Julia Yates

Julia Yates was a fashion pioneer and the woman who brought ladies trousers to New Zealand.

JULIA YATES

Fashion Entrepreneur

Fashion pioneer and the woman who brought ladies trousers to New Zealand

Trilby Yates was a design house named for its founder, a milliner who with her younger sister Julia established a hat shop in Auckland in the mid-1920s. Trilby was good with needle and thread and Julia had the business brain, plus a rakish style and demi-monde friends including exotic dancer Freda Stark.

Trilby died young, leaving a daughter, Digsy, for Julia to raise. The business traded on under the Trilby Yates name, focusing solely on fashion and cannily recruiting outside design talent. Most notable was young Nancy Hudson, an Elam School of Art graduate, in the mid-1930s.

Julia travelled overseas to keep up with trends, returning with the idea of branded shopping bags to replace discreet boxes. She was inspired by the movie-star style of Marlene Dietrich and claimed to be the first woman to wear trousers in New Zealand, once recalling how she was spat on for wearing the menswear on Queen Street in Central Auckland.

She later courted controversy by having versions made for public display and sale. This all helped the label's profile, but it was Hudson's focus on high-end creations using imported English wools and crepes that cemented its reputation. Her beautifully draped dresses and attuned eye for colour stood out.

The Dress Circle fashion history book says Hudson and a misfit young man, Hall Ludlow, who joined the workroom in 1945, improvised impressively when fabric was rationed. They repurposed upholstery cloth, linen tea towels and wool jersey meant for men's underwear. Both Hudson and Ludlow moved on to Australia, the latter to considerable acclaim.

A succession of designers followed, including Digsy, whose decision to leave upon marrying prompted Julia to shut up shop in the early 1950s.

Digsy and her daughter (also called Trilby), ran a dressmaking business from home in the 1970s, using old Trilby Yates labels for their very favourite designs.

Julia, who lived into her 90s, travelled extensively - still wearing the pants.

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