Dan Ahwa reflects on a timely honour for the designer who has put New Zealand fashion on the global map while championing the local industry.
Auckland-based fashion designer Kate Sylvester has been included in the 2025 New Year Honours lineup and has been made an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for services to the New Zealand fashion industry.
It is the first honour for the 56-year-old, who has been responsible for dressing New Zealand women for over three decades, including notable figures such as former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and award-winning singer/songwriter Bic Runga.
This month Sylvester was also honoured as one of Viva’s most fabulous people of 2024.
She and her partner Wayne Conway have inspired and influenced several other New Zealand fashion designers to make their mark in the industry, while raising their three sons Ike, Cosmo and Tom, who have also inherited their parents’ creative inclinations.
From their retail roots in 1993, when the couple worked from a converted warehouse on Kitchener St under the moniker Sister, they rebranded to Kate Sylvester in 1999, supported by a debut runway show at Australian Fashion Week that same year.
It didn’t take long before the world took note too, with Kate and Wayne picking up several key international stockists across Europe, Australia, Southeast Asia and the United States.
In 2008 she received an honorary doctorate from Massey University. The New Year Honour is another feather in the cap for a designer who has contributed much to our New Zealand fashion canon.
It has also come at a pivotal time for the designer, who announced to Viva in April the brand’s plan to wind down its operations in 2025 after 31 years in business – including its five retail stores across New Zealand; two in Auckland, one in Wellington and two in Christchurch.
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“I feel truly honoured to be acknowledged in this way,” says Kate when I contact her about the honour. “I wasn’t expecting it at all – it’s come as a total surprise.”
Having been asked to write a letter of support for the nomination, it is also a full-circle moment for me – Kate was one of the first established designers to extend her support as I came up in the industry as a young journalist and stylist. In 2011, when I was made fashion editor for Canvas Magazine, Kate was the first to send a handwritten note of congratulations.
Each season we’d catch up and talk through her inspiration and the references imbued in the clothing, the books she was reading, the films she was watching, the woman she dreamed up. The clothes had immortalised Lee Miller’s lips courtesy of Man Ray’s surrealism. The clothes had shades of Pulp Fiction’s Mia Wallace’s ambition “Now I wanna dance, I wanna win. I want that trophy, so dance good”.
The clothes were faithful renditions of those described and plucked from the pages of some of her favourite books – Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock, Donna Tartt’s A Secret History. J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Nancy Mitford’s Love in a Cold Climate. They are clothes that explored the dichotomy of Kate’s taste, ranging from Gloria Steinem to Gloria Vanderbilt.
One collection in particular neatly captures Kate’s energy and frank passion – she is the sort of person who speaks and uses her hands with gusto. Inspired by an iconic quote from French writer and feminist Simone de Beauvoir, the premise behind ‘Exploding Woman’, spring/summer 2020 reads:
“I am awfully greedy. I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish … You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed, I get mad with anger.”
WATCH: Watch: Kate Sylvester & Hera Lindsay Bird On What It Means To Be An ‘Exploding Woman’
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As much as Kate is devoted to her creativity, she is also deeply embedded in the logistics and the realities facing our local fashion industry. I’ve witnessed this first-hand as a fellow board member of Mindful Fashion New Zealand, the not-for-profit collective made up of New Zealand designers, fabric suppliers and manufacturers and co-founded with Ruby and Liam general manager Emily-Miller Sharma. Kate’s commitment to the New Zealand fashion industry is a legacy she continues to play a pivotal role in.
“The key thing for me is that it’s incredibly affirming. The affirmation that we, as a brand, have made a difference and contributed something to the country both culturally and economically. That’s really amazing to have this recognition, to think we have made a significant contribution,” she said.
“Secondly, I feel at the end of what has been a big year for Mindful Fashion with some major milestones, it’s another incredible affirmation – that’s a reflection not just not for me, but for the organisation.”
“I feel really proud of that achievement, to think we’ve gotten it to a point now where we are being seen and heard with the work we’re doing.”
Kate’s work in uniting the industry this way has helped in the ongoing education of the consumer and of the Government in ensuring the fashion industry creates a sustainable, circular and thriving future through education programmes, addressing skill shortages and creating jobs within the industry.
Only a few weeks after her announcement about closing the business, a new report from Mindful Fashion, Threads of Tomorrow: Crafting The Future of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Fashion, Clothing and Textiles Landscape, outlined a comprehensive manifesto of the industry’s current state, detailing 15 recommendations across four action areas.
The report outlined that the fashion industry added $7.8 billion to the economy in 2023 and accounted for 1.9% of GDP (building construction accounts for 1.4% of GDP). The report also revealed the local fashion industry has 76,001 employees, which equates to about 2.6% of the country’s labour force – 78% of whom are women – who were collectively paid $4.4b in wages last year.
“Certainly we are in a recession at the moment,” she says, “and it’s tough in our industry – just as it’s tough for everybody in New Zealand. But what I do know, having been in business for over 30 years, is that recessions come and go. Sometimes we’re up, sometimes we’re down.
“I know our industry is resilient and resourceful – we will survive this downturn. This is something we have to grit our teeth and get through collectively.
“Right now, there’s work we need to do to educate consumers and the Government about the dangers of ultra-fast fashion. It’s extremely dangerous to our local industry, to our country and the planet.”
Her passion for the industry has already been immortalised though in a seminal speech she delivered at the opening of New Zealand Fashion Week in 2014, one of the other reasons Kate was an easy nomination – her understanding that fashion is political has been as consistent over the years as her ability to cut the perfect pair of trousers or trenchcoat.
At the time she spoke about several of the issues facing our industry, including the lack of support from the Government for a new generation.
“Does our Government want a country of passive ‘global’ consumers, importing ‘global’ product? Or does our Government want New Zealand to be a dynamic, creative, aspirational country exporting our product to the world?”
I’ve always admired Kate’s ability to cut through the industry’s smoke and mirrors, combined with her passion for seeing others in the fashion industry flourish.
“The recession will right itself, but Governments around the world need to take action to make the likes of Temu and Shein accountable for the destruction they are causing by sucking money out of our economy.
“It’s not just herding local brands – consumers are better off buying from The Warehouse; at least it’s supporting a local business through GST with or tax. Whereas if you spend money at Temu or Shein, it’s simply taking away from our economy while creating stuff destined for landfill. That’s the biggest concern at the moment. It’s affecting not only fashion but many other industries too.”
Some of her greatest moments have helped inspire and celebrate New Zealand’s creativity and its position in the world. Whether it’s working with local pattern makers and manufacturers or the cut and colour of a dress inspired by the work of a New Zealand modernist such as Frances Hodgkins; or a salute to local fashion icons including 80s “it girl” Judith Baragwanath.
It’s also dress of hers that symbolised unity when Jacinda Ardern was sworn into Parliament upon her appointment as Prime Minister in 2017.
After 31 years in business, both Kate and Wayne are looking forward to some well-deserved time out to travel the world while continuing to do what they did for me when I first started out in the industry – championing a new generation trying to navigate the business of fashion.
“I’ve reached a stage where I want to do what I can to help move the industry forward. Part of this is ensuring that we are doing everything possible to nurture and support the new talent in our industry.”
Dan Ahwa is Viva’s fashion and creative director and a senior premium lifestyle journalist for the New Zealand Herald, specialising in the intersections of style, luxury, art and culture. Recent stories to catch up on include how, on the hīkoi to Parliament, self-expression through dress was also a form of protest; interviewing Team NZ CEO Grant Dalton; and the connection between navy suits conservatism and dressing fragile masculinity in a Trump era.
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