ETHICAL: Katie Coleman, right, with her photographer Heather Liddell at last year’s Fashion week.     — Photo by Charlotte Loyd

After her success at New Zealand’s Fashion Week designer Katie Coleman talks to Challenge Weekly’s Gemma Margerison about her label and her love of old movies.

"Fashion week was amazing. It was one of my big major goals for last year,” says Katie Coleman. “It was amazing in terms of branding, networking, meeting heaps of people and doing interviews. I love all that stuff and I love the pressure leading up to it. I did a group show, which is for emerging designers, and although it was really good, I’m hoping to do a solo show next.”

Although the 26-year-old spent her childhood dreaming of being a performing artist, through studying fashion at Rangitoto College Coleman found she had a natural flair for clothing design. “I just really loved it. I’d always made costumes with Mum when I was little so I was very familiar with lots of fabrics and colours and trim and being creative. It was kind of natural,” she recalls.

“I have been doing this fulltime for two years now. I was supposed to do it fulltime for about four months to get it off the ground and go and get another job to support it but I’ve managed to get away without having to get any other work. I have a studio at home but it kind- of takes over the whole house. I think it’s hard when you’re working from home just to be really disciplined. I’d like to get an office this year. I think with an office space you can get a bit more routine in your life.”

Coleman says the easiest part of her work is the designing.

“I love old movies; I spend hours watching them. I then try and pick something that is completely not fashionable at the moment. So for summer 2012/13, which is what I’m designing for at the moment, I started to look at The Talented Mr Ripley and that Italian summer feel. When I got into it I realised it was really on trend and would have been good for this summer. I thought people might be sick of those silhouettes by next summer, so you’ve really got to think ahead,” she says. “When I’m onto the right thing it kind of settles in my stomach, and so I just go from there. I can spend weeks and weeks just drawing and re-drawing and wrestling with things.”

For the coming winter Coleman predicts a back-to-your-roots feel will be in fashion. “At fashion week there were lots of maxi skirts that go up at the front. My theme for winter is Little House on the Prairie and there were a lot of country/western themes coming through. I don’t know if it’s because music has been on the folk buzz for a while and fashion designers are just catching up.”

Coleman’s current summer collection was based on Some Like It Hot starring Marilyn Monroe. “I wanted to create something that was really cute and flirtatious, a bit ditzy and fun. You can also see some of the tuxedo styles coming through. For my first collection, which was Spring/Summer 2010, I didn’t think too much about the commercial side, I just did it because I loved it. I do a wholesale tour every six months where you take the collection to the stores that you want to be in. You start getting feedback and reviews, and in a helpful way it gets inside your head.”

Although she had already begun to study fashion before she gave her life to God, Coleman gave her career choice serious consideration. “I became a Christian when I was 19. I was living in Dunedin and I’d already been studying fashion for a year. I’d done the partying the first year then went to Auckland for the holidays and came back as a Christian. That was a real journey for me,” she says. “Because I’d chosen to study fashion before I became a Christian there was the whole question of ‘Is this really what God wants me to do? Should I give it up?’ I never considered giving up my degree but I wondered, after my degree do I now have to go into youth ministry or become a nurse?”

Coleman spent the two years after her degree working as a PA in an office but realised she had to create and could do so with integrity. “I’ve got real ethics that underline the business. Everything is made in New Zealand so I know who’s making it and they are being paid a good wage. I’m making good quality garments, which is good for the environment; you’re not just going to throw them out next season because they’ve gone out of shape. I want to educate people to buy quality over quantity and to know where their clothes are coming from. It excites me that one day I could be contributing to the New Zealand economy because of exports and providing a stable business,” she says.