Liz Turner - Chic magnet

She's an up-and-coming fashion designer, hailed as one of the new generation to watch at New Zealand Fashion Week. As the pin-up girl of Bay of Plenty Polytechnic's prestigious fashion design course, you've probably seen her smiling down from a billboard near you. Yet Liz Turner is still just 21 years old. Ellen Irvine finds out more about the Riddle Me This designer whose stylish star is on the rise.
Age is just a number to Liz Turner.
She started her own fashion label at 19, was married at 20, and had her first Fashion Week show at 21.
Unsurprisingly, Liz believes many in the fashion industry don't realise quite how young she is.
"It's totally your perspective of how you view age. I'm just doing what I do ... you forget that's weird to people."
"Focused" is a word that comes up a lot when you talk about Liz.
The Mount Maunganui woman started her label, Riddle Me This, after completing a fashion design diploma in 2008.
While other graduates found work with established designers, she made the decision to go out on her own - at the start of the recession.
Her determination stood out from the start, according to Debra Laraman, head of the creative design programme at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic.
"Liz always had a sort of unique point of difference,"she says.
"She was quirky, she was very self-assured - she's extremely confident, quietly confident.
"She was very design-oriented. She would produce quite unexpected but extremely well-thought out pieces."
Laraman sees Riddle Me This as one of the rising stars of New Zealand fashion.
"This has been a pretty quick journey for someone so young. It's incredible. There's a lot of young designers that are coming through, like Stolen Girlfriends Club, and Liz is right on the button there."
In little more than two years, the label has quickly risen to the ranks of "one to watch".
Sold in 12 boutiques around New Zealand, including Carlson, Sisters and Little Black Crown, Riddle Me This has also featured on the fashion pages of several glossy magazines.
Dressed in a vintage bohemian skirt, a Riddle Me This black cut-out top and enormous platform wedges - a Trade Me find - Liz embodies her label's style.
"The idea is that you can personalise your Riddle Me This garment with whatever suits you, and add a splash of whatever. I always think layering is what makes you look styled, like you have put effort in."
Although she definitely looks the part, there's nothing "fashiony" about Liz - she's easy to talk to, confident, and quick to laugh at herself.
Liz describes Riddle Me This as "definitely edgy", but wearable.
"There's always some fashion-forward pieces in each collection, as well as some safer pieces [for women] that might not want to look edgy, but still want to have a point of difference from what you would buy from Glassons.
"It's definitely for a creative person who likes to look different to other people - a little bit weird," she laughs.
T HE DAUGHTER of a psychiatrist and a lawyer-turned-beekeeper, Liz comes from three generations of entrepreneurs and was encouraged by her father to start her own label.
Growing up in Hamilton, she was a focused child who knew from an early age what she wanted.
"[Being a fashion designer] had been in the forefront of my mind since I sewed a cushion in tech in Form Two.
"I thought, 'why haven't I thought about this as a career before?' I was 12."
A switch in schools at the age of 15, from the Anglican Waikato Diocesan School for Girls to co-ed Fairfield College, added spark to her creative side.
"I ended up becoming quite a punk," Liz says. "We were part of the hard-core scene in Hamilton, which was a really positive and really cool environment."
It's hard to imagine this well-groomed fashionista with multi-coloured hair, dressed in Chuck Taylors and skinny jeans.
But it was during this phase, while working part-time in a small boutique selling customised hoodies, that her entrepreneurial streak really kicked in.
Husband Josh sees his wife's business strengths as having a good balance "between seeing the big picture and seeing what's just in front of her".
He says Liz is adaptable, and good at multi-tasking.
"If it was too planned or set in stone, she wouldn't enjoy her job.
"I think she's really good at wearing many hats at the same time.
"Especially in the place she's at at the moment, doing this by herself, you have to be not only doing the financial side of things, but the designing and the pattern-drafting - there's so many different aspects that would usually take an army of people.
"She can wear all these hats and get all the jobs done."
THE FIRST Riddle Me This collection was launched for Summer 09-10, and was made up of just eight pieces.
In 2009, Liz attended New Zealand Fashion Week as an exhibitor, but the intensity ramped up a notch last year when she was selected to show as part of the New Generation show.
That, too, was a learning curve.
"I [realised] that I compromised my normal practices for the flattery of being asked to go to Fashion Week. I ended up being really pushed for time and finances.
"I wasn't happy with the quality of samples, but there was nothing I could do about it.
"They were fine for the catwalk, but when it came to sales, I wasn't happy. That was a massive learning thing for me."
Still, she achieved what she wanted - brand recognition - and plans to return this year.
Each Riddle Me This collection is born in a workroom in the garage of Liz's Mount Maunganui home. Sewing machines, huge rolls of brown pattern paper and designers' dummies are scattered around the busy space.
She's a one-woman band, involved in every step of the process - from drawing sketches and pattern-drafting to crunching the numbers and selling her collections to stores. Then, Liz and Josh hit the road to DEBRA LARAMAN
BAY OF PLENTY POLYTECHNIC[Liz] was quirky, she was very self-assured - she's extremely
confident. visit her stockists and show off the new collections.
It's not every designer who will turn up in person to stores as far-flung as Dunedin and Queenstown, but Liz says it's worth it.
"I like that the [stores] really appreciate the fact that I'm coming to see them in their site. I'm willing to spend the money to invest in them, and I like that sometimes it makes them feel more valued.
"It's investing in the future - not even in a business sense, in a relationship sense."
The next step is to employ staff, and she has her sights on a menswear label and the international market.
"I definitely want to tap into the Australian market, and beyond that Japan and the States, taking it one continent at a time."
But she wants to keep production in New Zealand.
"I buy everything from New Zealand suppliers - all my fabric and fastenings, everything.
"I just think it would be cool to have stuff in Japan and the States that's made in New Zealand."
The fashion industry is not without its downsides, and Liz admits she was unaware of exactly what she was getting in to.
"I knew it was going to be intense. I didn't know how to define that intensity. It's really competitive, and it can be really hard work."
Although most of New Zealand's major fashion labels are based out of the bigger cities, Liz does not see moving to Auckland as inevitable.
"I say that in ignorance at this stage, but I don't have to move to Auckland. I don't see why in the future I would need to move to Auckland.
"There are massive labels here that work well like Women and Oyl, even Hot Milk are based here.
"I reckon it's definitely viable to stay in the Mount. I'd really like to."
And if she sets her mind to it, it's not hard to imagine this designer making her mark from wherever she chooses.