Kiwi designers reveal the best fashion moments of 2015

(Photo:prom dresses online uk)Karen Walker

Working with four-legged Instagram sensation Toast the Dog in her spring 2015 eyewear campaign was one of the highlights of the fashion mogul’s year. The Cavalier King Charles spaniel stars alongside the designer wearing matching Creeper shades with those famous arrows along the side.

“Also being included, once again, in the Business of Fashion’s BoF500 list of the 500 most influential people in the fashion world today. It’s always an honour to be included in that list,” says Walker. One of her biggest projects was the launch of Karen Walker Fragrances here and in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Taking two years to develop, the A, B and C trio was created in Grasse, with the perfumerie Charabot, the oldest fragrance house in the world. “It was exciting to finally bring our signature optimism, energy and chic-meets-eccentric handwriting into a trio of fragrances: A, B and C,” she says. Walker also sent her collections down the catwalk at New York Fashion Week in February and September, her 18th and 19th seasons there.

Her latest one showed her Spring/Summer 16 collection, possibly her quirkiest yet. In New Zealand stores next year, the gold lambskin frocks, scarf dresses, romantic muslin and peasant silhouettes were all inspired by life in the Soviet Union’s secret training base, Zvedzny Gorodok, aka Star City. This was the off-the-map hub of the Soviet space programme where the first satellite, and the first man and woman, were launched into space.

Andrea Moore

Fashion designer Andrea Moore has had a frantic year, opening her seventh fashion store – this time in Christchurch – and launching her new footwear collection around the country. New Zealand Fashion Week was a fashion highlight for the Auckland-based designer, who sent garments from two collections down the runway – “The Poem”, inspired by the Japanese haiku and her time living in Japan in the 1990s, and “Walking Tall”, her jungle-inspired collection for her brand, I Am.

Moore was one of the key designers behind the Breast Cancer Cure fashion show, and the Queenstown charity fundraiser was a high point of her year, clinching $63,000 for breast cancer research. Other key moments? Selling out of one of her lines of sunglasses, and perhaps most excitingly, the moment when celebrity Kelly Osbourne wore Andrea Moore jewellery in a fashion shoot with Remix magazine. “My year was challenging, exhilarating and full of hard graft with fabulous team work from the AM Staff, my partner, Brian, and our kids.”

Ruby and Liam

Ruby designer Deanna Didovich rated her ballet-inspired Tonight Tonight collection at New Zealand Fashion Week as a 2015 highlight. Inspired by dance, “and designed for life”, Ruby sold the collection at a pop-up store onsite and the garments were in stores the next day, so Ruby fans could get what they saw on the catwalk straight into their own wardrobes.

Ruby also released more accessories – cute keyrings and jewellery – while sister brand Liam embraced matching sets in response to customer demands.

Says Liam designer Emily Miller-Sharma: “The versatility of being able to buy separates that can be worked into your existing wardrobe, but also worn together, has been particularly successful.” Ruby also opened its 10th store at Auckland International Airport – the first fashion boutique to open a store in the airport’s newlook fashion hub.

Twenty Seven Names

Wellington designers Rachel Easting and Anjali Stewart opened NZ Fashion Week with a wildcard outdoor show. Rather than a traditional runway show, models formed a grid to highlight the colour groups that gradiated through the collection – black, navy, natural and peach.

Stewart says the collection was inspired by Judy Chicago’s feminist work “The Dinner Party” and the concept for the outdoor show on the pier was sparked by Rineke Dijkstra’s portraiture.

“Much of her work has featured subjects in front of the shoreline and it’s something that really resonates with us,” says Stewart, who says the response to the fashion show was “overwhelming”. “The stars of the peach group were the peach coats in a beautiful Italian wool and a silk crepe de chine in a heart print that we worked on with textile designer Marta Buda. We also developed our own herringbone wool this season, which we’re really excited about.”

WORLD

She opened two stores – in Wellington and Ponsonby – but WORLD director Denise L’Estrange-Corbet was proudest of her charity work both here and abroad. Describing WORLD as the country’s most philanthropic brand, designers created T-shirts for the Leukaemia and Blood Cancer Foundation, she is an Ambassador for Diabetes Auckland, while also working with the IHC. “2015 also saw our brand achieve something which we are so proud to have been asked to be involved with. Since late 2014 we have been working with the United Nations on the Global Goals project, which was launched in New York this September, and was attended by Queen Rania of Spain, Victoria Beckham, Alek Wek, Richard Curtis and a host of others who all spoke. It was such a enormous, humbling project to be there and be part of this, as it covers so many aspects that we are huge believers in and supporters of, and to be part of the biggest organisation in the world was incredible for a New Zealand brand.”

WORLD’s T-shirt design was endorsed by the United Nations and given to all 300 delegates at the launch, while L’Estrange-Corbet was invited to attend a speech given by the Pope in the General Assembly Hall in the UN, with Ban Ki-moon and 100 world leaders. “That was just incredible. The T-shirts can be bought in store, online and in a variety of institutions (Te Papa), and I am not sure we can beat that, and it has taken our brand to a whole new level, as we have never been a brand who seeks endorsements from celebrities. Our philosophy has always been about giving back to the community, which WORLD has done since its inception in 1989, and will continue to do so.”

I Love Ugly

2015 was the year that I Love Ugly released its biggest ever campaign, Generations. The message, says creative director Valentin Ozich, underpins the brand’s philosophy and direction. The photographic campaign focused on the aspirations of men aged three to 12, asking them what they want to be when they grow up – and they were positioned next to older men aged 48 to 69, who were asked about their regrets. Ozich says: “As we grow up we are told that the world is the way it is and our job is to live our life within these boundaries. We are taught not to bash into the walls too much, to have a nice little family, get an education, save a little money and try not to get into too much trouble… This is your life, don’t be afraid to make it on your own terms. Question everything, be unique. While others around you cop out for a cookie cutter existence, continue to want more.” With four stores on home soil, I Love Ugly continued to support its first store on foreign soil, in Los Angeles.Read more at:red prom dresses