Trelise marching out to frock war

Trelise Cooper is nervous and angry about her upcoming case. Picture / Kenny Rodger

Trelise Cooper plucks at her mustard-coloured waistcoat with the big flowery rosette on the side, which sits over the plum blouse and joins the top of her three-layered filmy, flouncy, flowered skirt. Pleating material with her manicured fingers is something she does when she is nervous.

As she ushers me into the boardroom I realise that Cooper is smaller and curvier than expected. She confesses to short legs and a 48-year-old figure which dictates a fondness for nipped-in tops and skirts and a huge following of less-than-pin-thin women.

"I love jeans but they look terrible on me."

It is not Cooper's style to be negative. She is open, friendly and extremely talkative. She loves people, has the usual insecurities about being photographed: "But I haven't washed my hair. I look as though I've been dragged through a bush."

Her brand is associated with happy, delicious, artistic things. Her career began with a dream book where she wrote about being a fashion designer.

Now she has that dream: 77 employees, a glamorous Newmarket office with polished grey concrete floors and a meditation room scattered with velvet orange and red floor cushions where the team meditates and refreshes.

She says she is new to conflict - and certainly new to talking about it in public. For the last 20-odd years she has hidden her business brain behind racks of gorgeous, beaded frocks.

But as new attempts fail to solve a dispute with South Island designer, Tamsin Cooper, over the use of the younger designer's name, she has decided to go public on the frock wars.

This time, despite the countless interviews she has done , she insists that her PR adviser, Cathy Campbell, sits in "just to make sure I don't say too much about the case". Her other PR is Linda Clark, former editor and Nine to Noon radio host who now works part time for Wellington firm Sweeney Vesty while she studies law at Victoria University.

The minders are probably a good thing. Over the hour and a half it becomes obvious that Cooper is not just nervous, she is angry.

According to her this is no David and Goliath battle. The young designer, she contends, is endangering the multimillion-dollar international Trelise Cooper brand.

As a red blotch creeps up her neck, Cooper talks about the number of retail outlets in New Zealand which stock Tamsin's clothes and accessories.

"Stop!" says Campbell, and we get back on the desired track, talking about Trelise's fairytale success story - from zero to $16 million turnover (that she owns to) in just 10 years. Trelise Cooper is a private company and although she says she is "a really open person" she refuses to talk figures, for fear "it could be used against me in so many ways".

She's talking about "that tall poppy thing" plus the people who approach her every time there's a success story, asking for help - and her instinct to help.

"I used to say 'yes' to everybody. Now I have 10 charities I support."

From the outside it is easy to see how the fight with Tamsin Cooper of Arrowtown looks unfair. Cooper, with her blonde corkscrew curls, wide, square, smile and three large diamond rings, radiates success. She and her husband, Jack, are building a house in Omaha. She spends a good part of her life flying round the world selling her range. She is David Jones' biggest designer label, the star turn at New Zealand Fashion Week. She's off to Australia for a meeting tomorrow, New York next week.

This is Cooper's second go at the fashion business and her arty, funky, approach has appealed both times. Back in 1984, writing in her dream book and inspired by American guru-types who came to town, she decided to go for it. One in particular was the catalyst. "He said I had such flair in my dress, that I should go for my dream".

"I remember standing in the store at 2am, hanging clothes on the racks and crying. I had a massive panic attack."

The first day they sold what she hoped to sell in a week, the first week what they hoped to do in a month "and then we had another problem - how to restock."

She closed the store in 1989 after the birth of her son, Jasper, when her husband suggested a year campervanning round Europe. In all she stayed out of the business for nine years, revelling in motherhood.

Her new venture, based on selling wholesale, has been way more successful than expected. The Parnell shop, opened in 1998, succeeded "really quickly", the big Australian orders "shocked" her. Today 75 per cent of her business is export and her Nuffield St children's shop, which opened this year, has been "a huge success".

Tamsin Cooper launched her clothing range only last year, after starting with beaded velvet slippers and other accessories in 2003."Why, when you have all this, is it so important to put her out of business?"

"This is not about squashing a small supplier, it's about having differential between our brands," she says. "I wish her every success." She goes on to talk about "a girl working for me called Kristen Walker. When she went into business she knew clearly that it would be a problem with Karen Walker if she called herself Kristen Walker so she called herself Kristen."

Well then, how does it feel to be portrayed as a bully? "It's distressing," says Cooper". "I'm disappointed and I'm hurt".

Is she a bully?

"No, never. I'm the complete opposite. I'm a person who likes to collaborate. I feel I have a generosity of spirit which is why my business has been a success.

"I come from a place of generosity on all things, but felt on this I needed to make a stand."

With Campbell sitting there, she cannot divulge what Trelise Cooper Ltd offered Tamsin Cooper - and why it was not accepted. But she does say it was not a cash offer, simply a proposal she thought both brands could live with. Now, she says, she can't just let go.

"The problem for me is we both have international businesses. She [Tamsin] already sells into Australia and plans to move into the UK, Ireland, this year."

As for Tamsin simply using her name, which she surely has every right to do: "I say that you need to think really clearly when going into business, 'who's around with a similar name?'

"And there are laws. If you're using your given name you must make all attempts to disassociate yourself from the competition. I think Tamsin has done the opposite and identified her brand with my brand."

Trelise was undoubtedly there first. Her brand was first established in the early 1980s, Tamsin's in 2003.

So how did it come to this?

"My lawyers wrote to me and told me that Tamsin was registering a trademark."

It was just after Fashion Week last year that Tamsin had launched her clothing label, and Trelise was already worried. She talks about the beaded slippers that her clients tried to order (they were Tamsin's), the mix-up with clients looking for her via Telecom's 018 service and being forwarded to Tamsin Cooper instead. She also talks about how Tamsin, who married Luke Calder in 2001, could have used her married name as she, Trelise, does. How Tamsin's father is in the fashion business and well aware of the impact of her actions.

"The only conclusion I can draw is that if we settle the publicity goes away.

"This has escalated into a big operator versus small designer thing, a North Island versus South Island thing."

Last week's court-ordered judicial mediation had little hope of success. Now, says Cooper, the frock wars are on a no-exit highway. "I couldn't stop even if I wanted to." Next comes a December hearing for more discovery and interrogatory, "then it goes to the High Court, probably in June or July 2007."

So has it been damaging?

The self-confessed new-ager, who identifies with Oprah Winfrey and the "live your dream" philosophy, takes a big breath, runs the soft cloth of her jacket through her fingers for the hundredth time, and thinks carefully. "I've always had masses of support from people who know me, know my brand, but I do think people out there who don't know me, see it as a small designer from Arrowtown being taken to court by a big successful person.

"There is a toll and I'm sure there's one for Tamsin as well. I've purposely not read the media coverage Tamsin has generated because I don't want to get screwed up about it."

Although her lawyer gets in touch only when it's absolutely necessary, the stress of being portrayed as the bad guy is always there. You can see it in the blush that spreads, like a red, tell-tale puddle, up her neck towards the flawlessly made-up face.

Now, after trying to take the dignified route (despite the three-tier skirt) and keeping to business, she is determined to fight her case. "I believe some of the reporting has been unbalanced," she says. "I mentor a lot of young designers."

As for the lawyers' fees coming her way, "I'm too scared to count them."

Again, Cathy Campbell urges her to leave it there. "I guess it's going to be for the courts to decide, unfortunately," says Trelise Cooper. "The ball's in her court."