They are not daunted but excited by the fact the women range from 18 to 82.
"The most important thing in styling women is to listen," says Meghan, "to find out what they want, where they are going and, most importantly, how they feel."
It is this level of attention to customer service that won the Tauranga-based fashion label the Customer Service and the Excellence in Brand Marketing and Design categories at last year's Westpac Tauranga Business Awards. In a recent survey of their clients and staff, which analysed which words customers used to describe the brand, the word that most people used was "love".
Debi explains: "The company which ran the survey said it had never had such a strong result around one word, and never before has a brand come out so unanimously described as 'loved'. This really made us happy as when we set up our first store in 2006, in Devonport Rd, our dream was to create a 'love brand', a brand that customers would trust and that would make them feel confident, special and valued."
Repertoire's national sales manager, Miriam Berquist-Staite, adds, "What was clear from the survey is they not only love the clothes, but the time they spend in the store, the knowledge they gain, the confidence they come away with in a bag. In other words - the whole experience."
The Repertoire experience involves individual head-to-toe styling by in-store stylists.
Repertoire is opening its ninth store in Pukekohe but the attention to detail in each store remains. Most of the staff have recently completed a styling course in "illusion dressing", which Debi describes as "how to accentuate the good and hide the bad".
This can be as simple as knowing how to style an outfit with a belt to cinch in the waist, or a long-line necklace to draw the eye, explains Miriam. Store stylists will also go the extra mile. "In the Devonport Rd store, one of the stylists recently styled a lady for a wedding", says Debi. "Then she went up the road with her to help her choose the perfect shoes to go with the outfit."
Stylists also empower women with knowledge about how to wear the clothes.
"If we sell a top, we tell her what pants or shoes to wear with it to get different looks. This can also help someone identify gaps in her wardrobe."
This approach has led the company's design team to develop a capsule wardrobe of 15 key classic pieces that are produced in both black and white. "These pieces are the building blocks for styling," Meghan. "They are basics but have a design element which takes it up a notch. They are easy to wear and style and they form the foundation on which you can add in some new-season looks, with a pop of colour or new shape."
"The capsule idea became a must after listening to customers who talked about clothes that they had in their wardrobe that they did not know what to do with," says Miriam.
"We call these pieces wardrobe orphans. "They are items a woman could have spent a lot of money on but she doesn't wear often as she struggles to put them together. "More often than not it is a classic wardrobe essential that is needed to pull these pieces together and this is where the capsule collection offers brilliant solutions. "The key idea behind Repertoire is that you get clothes that work together in several different ways for multiple occasions."
This versatile approach is also the philosophy behind Repertoire's new line of event-focused women's clothing called Edition. "Customers were coming in looking for clothes for a particular event but they didn't just want to buy something one-off that they would never wear again," says Miriam.
"They wanted an investment piece, something that they could pull apart and wear different ways afterwards; for example, a lace dress for the races that another day can be belted up and worn with jeans and heels for a dinner out."
The line has been designed with special occasions in mind, as Miriam describes, "Any event where wonderful memories are made." Stores keep an event diary to avoid women turning up at the same event in identical outfits, and limited numbers are made of each line to reduce that risk. Each season new pieces will be dropped in every month.
Eighty per cent of the clothes in store are now original Repertoire designs, proudly made in New Zealand. The stores also sell complementary brands as well as an extensive jewellery and accessories collection.
