Ruby - chic, functional and fun

Kate Ashford, left, and Ruby founder Elizabeth Shand in their new Newmarket store, which opens today. Picture / Fotopress

Not so long ago it was hard to find a girl's hoodie in Auckland. Elizabeth Shand remembers buying a standard white hooded sweatshirt and dyeing it pink to imitate the look of the female dancers in the music video for rap group Run-DMC's It's Like That remix in the late 1990s.

Six years ago that sort of ingenuity led her to start girls' streetwear label Ruby as a hobby during her university days. Today, she opens the doors of Ruby's third store and is preparing to unveil a sister label, Madame Hawke, later this month.

Twenty-six-year-old Shand - a finalist in the young entrepreneur category of this year's Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year awards - said Ruby had reached a point where it was introducing more tailoring and luxurious fabrics and needed a brand to carry the items in a higher price bracket.

Madame Hawke fit that bill.

"I guess it is a bit more grown up," she said.

With the new store and label, she is expecting turnover to shoot to $2.2 million from $1.6 million last year.

And all this from someone who, as a schoolgirl, was keen on being a forensic scientist.

Shand started Ruby "as a hobby" midway through studying for a BA/BCom at Auckland University.

She had never studied fashion and was not handy with the sewing machine, but came up with ideas and got help from the lady who made her school ball dress.

"We made a few things, put together a range and I drove around the country showing it to stores."

She picked up five accounts from that trip and carried on building the range, fitting it around her study and part-time jobs.

Snowboarding and skateboarding influenced her early range of hoodies, T-shirts and jackets.

Ruby has now evolved into a more boutique fashion label, but the sports still have an influence on the designs, particularly the year-round range of hoodies and T-shirts.

The name comes from a "strong girl character" in the novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, seen as suiting the brand by being chic, functional and fun.

The first store opened on Auckland's High St in 2002 and the Wellington branch followed the next year. Ruby is also stocked in 20 stores nationally.

Shand is glad she opened in Wellington before the second Auckland store, as this had prevented it from being seen as an "Auckland label".

Co-director and friend Kate Ashford came on board in 2001 after returning to New Zealand from travelling.

The company now employs 17 staff across its Newmarket workroom and retail stores.

Having launched herself into business so young, Shand said advice and help from family - particularly her father - had been invaluable.

Her own savings and a family loan provided the early capital - and being able to live at home during the initial stages helped financially too.

Shand also puts a lot of the brand's success down to her partnership with Ashford.

"Neither of us would have been able to do this on our own. We've needed each other to develop the ideas and push things forward."

Shand feels it would have been a lot harder to start Ruby today, with many more fledgling fashion labels targeting the student and young professional market.

Although it could be easy to sit back and think they've made it, the pair keep pushing themselves to keep the momentum going.

They strive to make each successive range more technical and of a better quality. Regular shifts on the shop floor keep them in touch with their market.

Ruby has dabbled in exporting to Australia and has one stockist in Melbourne, but the task has been harder than envisaged.

Intellectual property law issues with other "Ruby" brands across the Tasman are the main reason they have pulled back for now.

The clash was also a catalyst for creating the Madame Hawke label - which they will start exporting across the Tasman next year.

Beyond that they will look to Japan and Britain.

Most Ruby garments are made here and Shand is keen to keep it that way for as long as possible.