Whanganui's Kerry Ranginui ticks over 10 years with Karen Walker

Kerry Ranginui says his "retirement plan" may be to open a small shop in his hometown of Whanganui. Photo / Supplied

Former Whanganui local Kerry Ranginui has clocked up 10 years as a pattern architect at renowned fashion label Karen Walker, and he released his 44th collection earlier this month. He told Mike Tweed that while it had taken a lot of hard work to get where he was, he had no plans to slow down any time soon.

Ranginui was busy finishing pieces from home during the Covid-19 lockdown, in a role that required him to "turn 2D designs into 3D garments".

"Karen [Walker] and Mikhail [Gherman] come up with the designs, and it's my job to take that design from paper and turn it into something physical," Ranginui said.

"It really is like being an architect, you take maths with the body and shape cloth around the form."

He said design interpretation was the hardest part of his job. But because he had worked with Walker and Gherman for 10 years he knew what they wanted.

"You have to be broad as well. Anything you could ever think of wearing, that's what I have to make."

Despite having years of experience under his belt, Ranginui said he needed to remain observant of what the pubic was wearing, and to constantly research as he went.

He said there was nothing worse than making something nobody wants - "it's not the same when your mum buys it".

A good label needed to incorporate what its designers were doing and wearing.

"For example, during last year's lockdown we [Karen Walker] were all wearing sweats and woolly jerseys, so throughout the collection this year we've been introducing that kind of stuff.

Ranginui was the face of Karen Walker's Pride campaign this year. Photo / Supplied

There was more to his job than simply bringing a design to life.

"You have to figure out what kind of fabric they want, where to get that fabric from, is there a local supplier, and if it's going to be practical to be reproduced two or three hundred times once we send it to a factory."

Ranginui said he had been interested in fashion from an early age, and because there weren't many items that caught his fancy growing up in Whanganui, he learned to sew his own garments "out of necessity really".

"It was pretty limited when I was younger, in terms of what clothes you could buy. I think I was a teenager when Hallensteins came to town.

"Unfortunately I was a pretty s**t sewer, totally self taught, so I had to go to university to learn those skills."

He left Whanganui the week after he graduated from the city's fashion school, moving to Auckland with $500 in his bank account and guaranteed work on his then-partner's dairy farm.

"I put all my clothes into my car, filled it up, and off I went. Once I got myself settled I came back for all my furniture a couple of months later."

He said he applied for about 30 jobs and got no responses.

"It got really disheartening.

"I just kept doing what I was doing, and I entered the Libra Design Project in 2011. I managed to win that show and my name started to get talked about a bit. People knew what my skillset was and I think it made it a little bit easier to get a job."

That job was at Karen Walker, who called him 18 months after he'd moved to Auckland.

As well as releasing four collections with them every year since, Ranginui found the time to enter the world of drag, debuting "Miss Kerry Berry" a year ago.

Miss Kerry Berry has been in action for the past 12 months. Photo / Supplied

Despite his busy schedule, he said he tried to get home to Whanganui as often as he could, and attended the city's Pride Week each year.

"That's getting bigger and bigger, and it shows the make-up of Whanganui has changed a bit. I remember a couple of years ago there were around 200 people marching on the river walk, and I thought that was amazing.

"It's a different place now to what I grew up in, and it's good for young, queer folk to see the rainbows around them and be able to be themselves."

When Ranginui was 15 years old he knew he was "full blown queer" but nobody around him was having that conversation.

"I had to do my research and my own things, and it wasn't until I moved to Auckland that I had all my eye-opening experiences."

Ranginui said people in Whanganui who were looking to forge a career in fashion should "go and train".

"Auckland has a really amazing fashion school, and if you're really passionate about it you might need to remove yourself from Whanganui to pursue things.

"That's what I had to do, because the fashion school doesn't exist in the same capacity there anymore."

There could be hundreds of others applying for jobs in the industry and it was important to get skills that could lift aspiring designers to the top of the pile, he said.

"Self motivation is really important. Your working day isn't just nine to five, it's whenever you need to be creative."

He said he planned on remaining at Karen Walker for the foreseeable future, with the next two years there already planned out.

"I'm always making stuff and I'm always dressing people. I like the fact that if anyone is wearing my clothes then they are made by me, and I think I'm always going to do small run, one-off, bespoke things for people."

Opening a small shop in Whanganui in the future might be a fun option, he added.

"That might be my retirement plan."