Ask Me Anything: Kathryn Wilson on her business journey, learning from the best and getting her shoes to Beyoncé

Footwear designer Kathryn Wilson. Photo / Steven Tilley

Footwear designer Kathryn Wilson is no novice when it comes to the cutthroat world of fashion.

She set up her brand at just 22, and this year marks the 20th year of selling her designer footwear.

Speaking to Paula Bennett on the Ask Me Anything podcast, Wilson traces her interest in shoes and fashion to a decade earlier than that.

Wilson and her two older sisters would buy some blank canvas uppers when they were young and then go home and decorate them.

“We’d have competitions on who could have the coolest pair with puff paint pens,” Wilson recalls.

“Mum said I would go one step further by cutting the toe out, turning them into a slingback. Mum would say: ‘Oh Kathryn, they’re brand new shoes!’ But I would be quite stoked that no one had a pair like me. They’d be really individual.”

That creative spirit and early interest in shoes stayed with her all the way through her schooling years and would coalesce into her first job.

“One of my first jobs was Andrea Biani shoes and I then developed an absolute love affair with the actual product of a shoe,” she says.

“I was interested in shoes and fashion but when I got to be around them and people who collect shoes, I definitely developed a love affair. I would volunteer to work at the factory in New Lynn over the weekends. I made a video montage of the manufacturing process just for laughs. And I would sweep the floor of the factory for free.”

This hard early graft would see her enrol to study fashion at AUT, simply because there wasn’t an option to focus on footwear design.

In between her studies, she continued working at Andrea Biani and this decision would prove pivotal in determining her next step.

“My manager asked me: ‘Who do you look up to in fashion at the moment? Who would you just love to learn from?’ “I said: ‘Well, I love what Karen Walker’s doing. She was about 10 years into her business, but she is global and so exciting. If I could have a New Zealand shoe name with her scale, that would be my dream.”

What happened next almost feels as though it were plucked from a film.

“[My manager] looked them up in the White Pages and rang the number and passed me the phone. She told me: ‘Tell them you’ll work for free. Tell them you’ll sweep the floor.’

That led to a one-year internship that saw Wilson catch the train in from Papakura at six in the morning to sweep the floors at Karen Walker and iron the garments for sale. “I kept my eyes and ears open and learned so much just being in that environment where I was terrified of everyone and I remember thinking everyone was so good-looking and so cool.”

Wilson says that opened her eyes to the scale of the industry and showed her what it took to be a success.

She continued studying, heading to Britain and Europe to learn more, before starting her business in her early 20s.

Her enormous work ethic didn’t subside for an instant and by the 2010s she had built a brand that was recognised around the globe and even picked up by one of the most famous musicians in the world.

In 2014, the Herald reported that R&B superstar Beyoncé took two new pairs of Kathryn Wilson shoes home as a souvenir from her New Zealand concerts.

“I’m a total fangirl,” says Wilson

“I just think she represents so much more than her music. I’ve always enjoyed the way her music brings females together, especially on the dancefloor.”

That adoration for Beyonce would lead to a moment of serendipity that would eventually see the superstar leave the country with shoes bearing the Kathryn Wilson name.

Listen to the full podcast to hear how this all happened.

Ask Me Anything is an NZ Herald podcast, hosted by Paula Bennett. New episodes are out every Sunday.

You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.