Georgia Pratt Holiber Got Her Start In Modelling By Making Clothes. Now She’s Returning To Them.

New Zealand model Georgia Pratt Holiber is returning to her true calling — fashion design. Jessica Beresford chats to the New Yorker about her new mission.

Georgia Pratt Holiber never intended to live in New York long-term. The New Zealand-born model and fashion designer moved there exactly 10 years ago, on a whim, but now has her roots firmly planted in the city.

She lives in the leafy suburb of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, “a very sweet little neighbourhood with lots of parks and a very slow-paced life”, along with her husband Nicolas Holiber, an artist and New York native, and their 10-month-old daughter Hazel.

The duo share a studio space, where Holiber creates mixed-media paintings and sculptures and Pratt Holiber designs clothes; when they aren’t working, they go to a nearby seafood market for oyster happy hour, visit their favourite art galleries, or head into Manhattan to see friends. On the weekends, they might take the three-and-a-half-hour drive north to Vermont, where they have a house — an A-Frame from the ‘70s — in the woods.

“I love that New York is everything all at once, it really is its own world,” says Pratt Holiber of the city she calls home. “There is such an immense sense of community here.”

Pratt Holiber never intended, either, for modelling to be a long-term career. Growing up on Auckland’s North Shore, she wanted to be a designer, studying fashion at AUT before going on to manage the workroom at Miss Crabb. While there, she launched her own brand — a small collection of coats, T-shirts and dresses — while doing a bit of modelling for extra money.

“I always thought modelling would be a gig on the side,” she says. “Especially in New Zealand, because at the time, for my part of the industry, it was very niche to not be a regular-sized model.”

Coincidentally, Pratt Holiber had interviewed American model Tara Lynn for her dissertation at university, and the pair had become pen pals. Lynn was signed to Ford Models in New York at the time, and encouraged the agents there to take a look at Pratt Holiber’s books; they signed her after one Skype call.

When she arrived in New York in 2013, the body positivity movement hadn’t yet taken off, and size zero was still de rigueur, in both the commercial and editorial sides of the fashion industry.

“A lot of the bigger jobs were really only going to two or three girls — Ashley Graham, Candice Huffine and Tara Lynn, and it was very hard to convince people that you were worth their time, basically,” says Pratt Holiber. She didn’t get her first big campaign until 2016, when American retailer Lane Bryant cast her alongside a number of other plus-size models in a campaign photographed by Cass Bird.

Bigger, household-name American brands, such as J Crew, followed suit, and Pratt Holiber started getting booked for editorial work in magazines, and to walk in some runway shows. “Really, I would say that everything’s just started to take a pretty fast turn in the last three, maybe four years,” says Pratt Holiber, who is now signed to IMG.

“It’s so crazy to say this, but 10 years ago, the brands that I work for now, let’s say J Crew, would never have even seen us. The kind of progress that’s happened has actually been pretty amazing. Even though it’s not enough, I still think the industry has come a long way in just the small time that I’ve been here.”

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Throughout her modelling career, Pratt Holiber has kept a studio practice, and always intended to revisit fashion design, and pick up where she left off in New Zealand. Last year she launched a new brand, Hilda Ereaut (pronounced EH-ROW), with “classic silhouettes” that she says are an extension of her personality, and the way that she designs.

“It’s a family name — Hilda is my granny’s granny, and there are lots of funny stories about her that I’ve been told over the years that I always really liked,” she says. “I thought it was a nice way to separate myself from the brand a little bit as well. I think when you have had a career doing something that is in your image, it’s very hard to separate something else from that if your name is there.”

The brand is true to how Pratt Holiber has always made clothes, in a way that “feels very free form” — bias cut dresses, gathered halter neck tops and functional wrap skirts, made from printed silks or cotton.

“I am always making something that feels very appropriate for where I’m living. The essence is very rooted in New York, but then it also feels very heavily influenced by New Zealand. This idea of things feeling quite simple, but also considerate and adaptable.”

Her old boss, Kristine Crabb, who closed her namesake business in 2019 and now runs the ‘multi-sensory studio’ Gloria on Ponsonby Rd, is a big supporter of Pratt Holiber and her new venture. “The clothes are really sophisticated, with lots of beautiful finishes and fabrics and clever construction,” says Crabb. “I think Georgia’s style is quite universal, it’s an international standard. You can wear it casually, but also quite glamorously, and that’s quite a New Zealand way of doing things.”

Pratt Holiber is cautious, however, not to categorise Hilda Ereaut as a plus-size brand. “I don’t want to talk about size and inclusivity like it’s this mission that I’m on. It’s a part of what I’m doing, because I am essentially making clothes for me and anyone else that likes them, and I’m always thinking about how many people can be part of what I’m doing — all the different shapes and sizes. But it’s not the main goal of what I’m trying to provide for anyone, and I am very careful not to box myself into that.”

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While she will continue to model, Pratt Holiber hopes that the steer into fashion design will give her more time to stay in one place, and slow down one area of her life. It’s also part of a realisation that designing clothes is her ultimate life calling.

“No matter what I’m doing for work, I’ve always made it a real priority to make sure I can be making clothes for myself and for others,” she adds. “I really just want to be making beautiful clothes that people are going to really love wearing, that are going to bring something to their life that they don’t already have.”

Discover Georgia’s full photoshoot in New York here, as she takes to the streets in a parade of fashion.