Return to the catwalk

A Carlson design on the Dunedin Railway Station runway during iD Dunedin Fashion Week last year. Photos: Chris Sullivan/iD Dunedin.

Dunedin-raised designer Tanya Carlson is celebrating 20 years of her label with a catwalk collection of new one-off designs. She talks to Amie Richardson about her return to the New Zealand Fashion Week runway after a decade's absence.

It's 7am. The sun is rising on Ponsonby Rd and Tanya Carlson is in her workroom cutting sea green vintage French lace. She's confident, despite the fabric's precious fragility, like a master Japanese papercutter at work, an artist practised in creating feminine silhouettes.

Dunedin label well-received

Carlson has already been up for two hours. With just days to go until her runway show - and return to New Zealand Fashion Week after a decade - she is in the final throes of completing the collection that will celebrate 20 years of her label, Carlson.

Designer Tanya Carlson is back at New Zealand Fashion Week this year.

''I feel so privileged to be able to concentrate entirely on the creative process of designing these garments as one-off pieces, rather than having to think about going into production. This kind of creative freedom is usually something you only get at the beginning of your career. So this is like a gift to me, and my label.''

Each of the 60 garments has been lovingly designed and handcrafted using Carlson's extensive fabric archive. A self-confessed hoarder when it comes to textiles, Carlson has collected German velvets, French lace, silks, taffeta, over her years in fashion, from around the globe. The pieces will be available for sale at the Carlson store in Auckland.

''It's amazing being able to add value and give new life to these fabrics, or to transform old pieces into something new,'' Carlson says.

''As designers, we waste so much fabric, even as we're trying to conserve it. There is something incredibly satisfying about giving these old offcuts new life, like a phoenix rising from the ashes.''

Carlson's own personal journey hasn't been too dissimilar to that mythical bird that is said to cyclically regenerate. Over her 20 years in business, Carlson has faced tough retail environments, a shortage of machinists and manufacturers as factories close down, hard decisions to pull out of markets, the move into online retail, and the endless test of staying fresh and relevant with each new collection. But from every difficult period, she has emerged with a brighter hue.

Tanya Carlson makes a final check of Miss New Zealand's national costume in 1999. Photo: ODT.

She is a key part of the team behind 18 years of iD Dunedin Fashion Week; a committee member, designer (one of the first to show when the event was held in a local bar) and the head judge in the iD International Emerging Designer Awards. In that role, she is inspired - tough but encouraging - by the 30-plus designers that come from around the globe to Dunedin every year. Year after year, she inspects the craft or new technology on display, asking countless questions of the new talent, interested, excited, ready to embrace a new generation of designers and help them into the industry.

Suitably gothic, with references to the colours of her youth, the Carlson label is as at home in Dunedin as it ever was, despite having moved to Auckland more than a decade ago.

Raised on Otago Peninsula, Carlson studied painting and printmaking at the East Sydney Technical College from the age of 17, spending two years completing a fine arts certificate before a further four years of study to get her diploma in fashion design.

Returning to Dunedin at 24, she set up her made-to-measure business, gaining clients as the reputation of her impeccably tailored garments grew. She jokes that she ended up ''making half the city's formal gowns and wedding dresses''; a job she loved, taking great pride in creating each piece. Years later, when her wedding dresses were exhibited at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery as part of iD Dunedin Fashion Week's 15th anniversary, the love shown by the city for a favoured designer was humbling.

''When I relocated to Auckland, I was still in Dunedin every month or so, and much more during iD. But seeing my wedding dresses, these exquisite designs - all with their own marvellous story - together like that in a public gallery. It was amazing.''

Tanya Carlson looks over design sketches for Australian Fashion Week in 2001. Photo: ODT.

Carlson launched her label in early 1997. Her design ethos has held true over 20 years; an emphasis on colour and a palette chosen from the natural world and her experience of it, delicate, luxury fabrics and feminine silhouettes.

Her label gained popularity quickly and during the 2000s she entered the Australian market, which massively increased the size of her business.

''We were stocking 13 David Jones stores, had 35 wholesale stockists and a store in Auckland. But I wish someone had slowed me down and said, `Stop. Look around. Enjoy it'.''

In 2008, when New Zealand signed a free-trade agreement with China, the fashion industry changed almost overnight. Finding manufacturers in New Zealand became increasingly difficult as they began closing their doors, struggling to compete with cheaper offshore labour.

''We couldn't keep up with orders and we had to just pull the whole thing down, stop wholesaling, pull out of Australia and hold on. Our New Zealand stockists were falling like flies.

''There was a lack of machinists, there were no young people being trained, and you could start to see parts of the industry no longer hiring apprentices. And I was thinking `What's going to happen when we need to get machines repaired or there's no young cutters coming through?'.''

Holding on in a retail environment that seems to get tougher every season and continuing to manufacture exclusively in New Zealand hasn't been easy.

But Carlson plays to her strengths, producing the classic shapes with a focus on tailoring, fabrics and quality in her ready-to-wear collections, alongside her one-off demi-couture garments and wedding dresses. Popular with New Zealand's celebrities, Carlson has been worn by an array of Kiwi notables in music, TV and sports; from Ladi6 to Samantha Hayes, Rachel Hunter to Olympian Lisa Carrington, as well as international names, such as chef Nigella Lawson, actress Heather Graham, and supermodels Linda Evangelista and Gisele Bundchen.

''I love the process of creating a one-off garment with a specific person in mind. I research what colours they like, what shapes, and then look at the event they're going to - particularly if it's a red carpet event - and think about how much they want to stand out.

''People have to feel comfortable in what they're wearing to feel beautiful, so pushing people too far out of their comfort zone is pointless.

''In her latest collection she has had the freedom to create garments without the restrictions of creating for a specific purpose.

''I guess behind each piece is a different version of myself and of the Carlson woman. While they are pieces that you could wear during the day, I've imagined a scenario for all of them; from singing to an audience of thousands to a road trip across America. Each piece has been created for the pure joy of design.''

The show is presented by Holden Astra as Carlson has been an ambassador for Holden NZ for the past two years.

- Amie Richardson has worked as a publicist for the iD Dunedin Fashion Week.