Global designs

Margot Acland with designer Imogen Tunnicliffe in the Citta design workroom. Photo / Babiche Martens

Meet Margo Acland, the quietly driven force behind one of New Zealand's most successful design brands.

Margot Acland, director and founder of Citta Design, is a woman who has the element of surprise tucked into her fastidiously formed bag of tricks. Few will realise that the business she started in 1989 has grown, almost stealthily, under her guidance, to employ a team of 100 and has its sights set on becoming a significant global player in the arena of homeware design. Acland makes no song and dance about it.

Quiet achievement is an inherent trait. Blowing your own trumpet would cut no mustard in the central North Island town of Murupara, where she grew up. It was a no-nonsense place with a strong community focus and "I had wonderful parents". By which Acland means they were adventurous and fun. Her dad was a forestry worker who'd been around the world five times by the time he was 15. "He was full of ideas. He'd wake us up at three in the morning to see the sunrise or encourage us to play strip poker if we didn't want to get into our pyjamas at night." Her mum would take the kids fishing and tramping in the surrounding forest.

Fashion was an interest and, with no shops nearby, the young Acland made all her own clothes. "For my 15th birthday I got a Bernina sewing machine - and my brother was given an orange Mini - and the funny thing was they both cost the same!"

Even as a teen, she was teaming her creativity with an appreciation of cash-flow and collateral.

After school, when Auckland University rejected her application to enrol in law, she headed south to Canterbury. A friend convinced her to swap lines on sign-up day to study commerce and accounting instead. "I was totally misplaced in accounting - nothing seemed to add up very well."

This statement is not entirely true. By joining a newly listed public company in Auckland when it had just five employees, she rose up the ranks to become one of the first female company secretaries in New Zealand.

When she married in 1989, Acland leapt off the corporate ladder with gusto. "I didn't want to be one of those stressed mothers," she says. A friend who'd just been appointed the trade commissioner to Italy suggested she take advantage of the decrease in import duties to bring in Italian ceramics and "the idea made good business sense".

She opened Corso de Fiori in Parnell. They were fun days, with a team of just five. "When containers came in, we'd put a sign up saying 'closed' while we were all out back unpacking it."

These days her warehouse is significantly larger, it's an architectural masterpiece by Jasmax, located near the airport. But those grassroots experiences, coupled with financial nous, are what have landed her here - at the forefront of exporting Antipodean design.

When pressed for the secret to her success, she says she has two important skills: a gift for organisation and flair for recognising talent.

Where once the Citta team visited trade fairs only in Europe and China to pick up and modify items to their stringent style and function criteria, today around 40 per cent of the range is designed right here in New Zealand.

Acland was impressed by the skills of Imogen Tunnicliffe, who not only had the hands-on ability to fashion the company's clean, fresh look but the cool head to realise "there's no point in designing something if it doesn't sell". Tunnicliffe heads a team of four full-timers and says it's their aim to create "beautiful things in everyday life - a bit of art that's not expensive". An Elam graduate with a fine art degree and a screen printing major, she travels the world for inspiration for the seasonal ranges. Last season, the winter collection was based on an Indian soiree, all jewel tones and with textures of beaten copper, rattan and pewter. This summer, Tunnicliffe takes the Citta clientele on an excursion to Mexico. To develop the homeware goodies that include napkins, cushions, bedlinen, glassware, beach bags and resort wear, she puts together a mood board. It features a collection of magazine clippings, photograph imagery and fabric swatches.

Shades of watermelon and aqua blue are prominent in this season's range as is the hand motif. Says Tunnicliffe: "The hand is a big part of Mexican imagery - it's what makes us human, it's how we create."

This distinctive graphic hand she's used on napkins, tea towels, aprons. "I enjoy putting excitement into design as New Zealanders can be a bit afraid of colour and pattern. Still, I find it uplifts my spirit."

The key is making it acceptable to the local audience. A white duvet inlaid with an intricate-yet-subtle tile motif, for instance, can be used as is or jazzed up with distinctive blue-patterned Euro cushions. "I wanted to contrast the elegant coastal side of Mexico with its sugary white sands, weaves and textures with the pop culture and religious iconography. And of course the art of Frida Kahlo was a huge influence."

Each season, Tunnicliffe and her team also design a couple of offbeat toys for kids. With little stories attached to the characters, they have proved hugely popular. This time round the word "gato" (Spanish for cat) and "perro" (dog) are embroidered on to the back of the quirky critters. "I hope it will be vaguely educational."

Obviously living her dream job, the role is not without its risks. "My fiance says our lounge is 70 per cent cushions," says Tunnicliffe.

Plunging into a travel brochure or hopping on a plane for ideas sounds like an ethereal and self-indulgent way to plan a seasonal range but the approach also has some sound thinking behind it.

This idea to leverage the rest of the world for inspiration and yet adapt it to the fresh, baggage-free style of our own country originates with brand strategist Brian R. Richards.

When Acland called him in to take a close look at the business, she says, he came up with the observation that they were still "a bunch of grubby traders".

"Anyone can knock up a cushion, but success is about the good business behaviours behind the design," says Richards, amusingly also an accountant by training.

A long-term strategy is now in place with its cornerstone built on our new world view of design. As he explains it, "the old world finds it hard to hold a mirror to itself and pick its best". Every now and then someone gets it right - as in the Terence Conran stores. "He took the best of British design and made it better."

Richards has helped transform the Citta team into a crew that can reinterpret global design values with a sense of theatre. This is not only about re-inventing established ideas but bringing them to life in imaginative photo shoots, distinctive in-store displays, and creating back-up collateral for their distributors. Put simply, it's about storytelling.

"We look at how the world lives - or wants to live - and play with the elements. We don't want to be overly prescriptive, but to present a suite of thoughts, some ideas for people to try," he says.

Citta, Italian for "city", has always had a focus on urban dwellers. "We are not a kiwiana brand - we're a travelogue brand, best described as a living odyssey. We take you someplace else."

And this journey is only just beginning. Last week the team from Citta, headed up by international manager Mary-Louise O'Dowd just showed its range in Paris at Maison & Objet.

The selection process for exhibitors was rigorous and O'Dowd explains that they were only one of two New Zealand companies to make the grade. This premier trade-only fair attacts more than 85,000 visitors and is covered extensively in the press. In this way, the company hopes to expand its international network of distributors beyond Australia, Britain, Belgium, France and South Africa.

"The overseas buyers love that we are from New Zealand. They see us as fresh and very new," says O'Dowd.

Nevertheless the product has to live up to the quality test too. And O'Dowd, who has worked at Citta for eight years, has road-trial confidence in that. "I know I can stand behind it because my entire family uses it. I've worn that gown, used those drinking glasses, given my nephews and nieces those fleece blankets as gifts."

The Citta offering spans living, kitchen, dining, bedroom, wardrobe, kids' room, bathroom and travel. The base range is complemented with an ever-changing seasonal collection. Sometimes the plethora of products can be hard to keep track of.

O'Dowd: "Occasionally I'll visit friends' places and comment on an item and they'll look at me and say 'but it's one of yours!"'

At Maison & Objet, she proudly flew the flag of homegrown design - from Murupara to Auckland to the world.