Young designer aces her Glam Slam opponents

By ALAN PERROTT

In only four months Nikki Lawrence has leaped from playing about on her mother's sewing machine to running her own label and winning three fashion competitions.

The 17-year-old from Glendowie admits to being a little daunted by the speed of her achievements after winning the ASB Classic Glam Slam young designer competition this week.

"It's quite scary really," she said. "Most people my age have no idea what they are going to do. It's like I suddenly have a career, but who knows I could change my mind completely in a few years and do something completely different.

"I'm trying not to think about that right now, I have to go to Paris first."

Lawrence considers herself a latecomer to fashion - "I grew up as a tomboy" - and said her tastes were strongly influenced by sport.

Before constructing skirts and tops she was happiest pulling apart and reassembling old clocks and radios.

Three of her designs were selected for the Glam Slam finals and her clothes are being worn by her friends, sisters and even mother, a former New Zealand tennis champion.

Her mother, then Marilyn Pryde, played Evonne Goolagong, the Wimbledon champion, at Wimbledon in 1972.

In the 1960s and 1970s Pryde was described as a child prodigy in New Zealand tennis.

She became national under-19 champion at 14 and won national senior titles at 15 (1968) and 17 (1970), as well as winning five overseas titles - three in Israel, one in Switzerland and another in Italy.

She played at Wimbledon for three consecutive years in the 1970s, and her career highlight was beating a young Martina Navratilova to reach the finals of the world junior championships. She retired at 23 because of leg injuries.

AnnMaree Chambers, chief judge at the Glam Slam competition, described Lawrence's winning design as an "up-to-the-minute and innovative fashion look which could be worn both on and off the tennis court".

The win meant $3000 in prizemoney and an opportunity to join the design and buyer team for fashion website Ezibuy, but that will have to wait until after the trip to Europe she won with the Modus Operandi young designer title.

In Europe, Lawrence will meet London designers Shelley Fox, Angela Quaintrell and Charlotte Smith before heading to Milan for the Undress Show and Paris for the Pret a Porter and Who's Next shows and a visit the European School of Design.

But Lawrence has had no time for nerves or contemplating her future.

She has been flat out producing more than 80 garments under her Nikki L label for two Auckland stores, Juxtapose in Karangahape Rd and High St's Modus Operandi, while also developing new designs to show in Europe.

"It's got to the point where I am having ideas while I'm sleeping and have to get up and draw them."