Fashion designer Sarah Aspinall in her Crawford St Studio.
Photo by Craig Baxter.
Ahead of the iD Dunedin Fashion Show, Tom McKinlay
talks to fashion designer Sarah Aspinall.
It's not a bags to riches story just yet for
Dunedin designer Sara Aspinall, but the iD Dunedin Fashion
Show first-timer is beginning to make her mark.
From her Crawford St workroom, Aspinall (32) has put together
her first full winter collection, "Misery loves Company",
which will join the iD parade along the Dunedin Railway
Station platform next month.
It has been the usual long hours and hard graft putting the
collection together, especially as Aspinall's line also
includes bags and jewellery accessories.
But it is coming together.
She has now sourced the 15 pairs of shoes she needs for her
models.
Not that that is the end of the process in Dunedin-born
Aspinall's world.
Design by Sarah Aspinall. Photo supplied.
"We are going to do a bit of a cover up on them.
"We're going to make them into boots."
Which is a fair example of the approach the designer takes
for her three-year-old Company of Strangers label.
"You can always turn something into something else.
"Give it another life," she says.
"When I started the business, I started making bags out of
leather jackets, sourcing them from wherever - the uglier the
leather jackets the better," she explains.
Now, after three years, Company of Strangers has expanded to
the point where it is offering a full range of "multiple
personality, motorcycle and bogan culture"-inspired gear.
"The winter season I am showing includes some bags and
jewellery in there as well.
Design by Sarah Aspinall. Photo supplied.
"It is only the second season of clothing," she says.
The first was a small collection of spring clothing, which
has been on sale in Dunedin exclusively at Plume.
Company of Strangers is in another nine stores around the
country, one in Australia and recently picked up two Hong
Kong outlets after a Paris outing for the line.
Aspinall's burgeoning career had its start at Otago
Polytechnic, where she completed a fashion diploma in 1997
before finding work at Margi Robertson's Nom*D label for six
years.
In 2007, she returned to the polytechnic to upgrade her
qualification to a degree.
The time at Nom*D was invaluable, Aspinall says.
"I was working really closely with Margi and had a lot of
responsibility," she says.
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