Two Decades Of Knuefermann: Meet The Quiet Force Behind The Designs

Turet Knuefermann prefers to be out of the spotlight, but her label’s 20th anniversary has the designer lit up.

Knuefermann is best known for clothing suffused with elegance, ease, and sophistication. What’s lesser known is the woman behind the eponymous brand because designer Turet Knuefermann is camera-shy, though for reasons you might not guess.

Most days you’ll still find her on the shop floor serving customers because she’s always found joy in dressing others and leaves her ego at the door.

In an industry often driven by personalities, Knuefermann lets her work speak for itself. She believes people will feel more comfortable if they don’t know she’s the designer, and this approach also allows Knuefermann to glean honest feedback, which has enabled her to refine and perfect her craft over the years.

Her 20th anniversary celebration at The Northern Club at the culmination of New Zealand Fashion Week last month was also under the radar. A private showcase for loyal customers and supporters that was high on vibe and glamour. Models presented 50 looks (40 new and 10 from the archive) and paraded up and down stairs from the old-world Members Dining Room to the underground bougie lounge, sashaying among guests sprawled fireside on settees where champagne and party vibes flowed.

The show marked two decades since the opening of the TK store on Ponsonby’s Brown St (since rebranded to Knuefermann) and doesn’t count the preceding years during which she first showed at the inaugural L’Oreal New Zealand Fashion Week in 2001 under the moniker IPG, which in her words was “just dabbling”.

“Argh, can we not mention that? Looking back, it’s amusing like that perm you got in the 80s and the acid wash jeans you thought were cool,” she laughs. “Though funnily enough those pieces are popping up here and there in vintage stores and some of the young staff who work with me are like, ‘oh, that’s so cool, why don’t you make that again?’”

Always an avid sewer, New Zealand-born Knuefermann (who was raised on both sides of the globe with several years of schooling in Germany) learnt to sew from her mum, who gifted her a sewing machine. From her late teens she was whipping up outfits for herself and her friends for a night out on the town, which led to an invitation to make some clothes for Tango store in the late 90s. She cut and sewed everything sitting on the floor of her flat. She also made clothing especially for stylist friend Lisa Matson for shoots. As a result, Knuefermann had editorial spreads in Fashion Quarterly before she’d even considered having a label. And things snowballed from there.

It was one of her besties, the late Darren Taylor aka drag queen Bambi, who encouraged her to take part in the inaugural L’Oreal New Zealand Fashion Week in 2001. “I thought, ‘okay, that sounds like fun’ and I just put together a range and showed it without even thinking that maybe buyers might be interested or that I had to then produce that stuff,” she says.

After the show she found the cuffs to a red denim jacket that she’d forgotten to attach lying under a table. It featured on the cover of the Waikato Times showing her “accidental” deconstructed cuff.

And the buyers did come and, of course, she hadn’t priced any of the garments.

After her Fashion Week debut she picked up work as a stylist on television shows such as Deal or No Deal, So You Think You Can Dance, The Singing Bee and New Zealand Idol, where she had to conjure up outfits for the cast within days and would take to the sewing machine to make it happen. It taught her a lot about urgency, speed, problem solving on the go and body shapes.

It’s also been 20 years since she met her partner Danilo David. The couple, who have a 9-year-old son Ayrton, met through Bambi. David had not long arrived from Brazil and was working as a chef at restaurant Gina’s, which was behind her home, and they kept bumping into each other. Not long into their relationship he invited her to join him on a trip to Brazil to visit his family, which inspired her to open a shop.

“I was absolutely blown away by the incredible stores, the architecture, the way people dressed,” she says.

David is a photographer and does most of Knuefermann’s photography campaigns, though in the beginning he also worked in the store.

The couple began importing clothes from Argentina and Brazil and were invited to Brazil Fashion Week. As Knuefermann worked the shop floor she listened to her customers’ needs and identified lots of gaps.

“Someone would say, ‘I’m going to a party tomorrow night and I need this’ and I’d be like, ‘oh, I’ve got some fabric, I’ll whip it up’ and it was ready the next day and I’d sew all night, which was crazy and not a sustainable business system but it definitely built me a really loyal customer base because I would do everything I could to make it work for everyone that walked in the door.”

Her solutions-based approach also led to her dreaming up a version of Afterpay in 2011 where customers could take the garment and pay in instalments. She had a non-disclosure agreement drawn up and took her idea to the bank, but at the time no one understood the vision and she parked it. She’s since gone on to develop retail software for a “money jar” Knuefermann loyalty savings kitty where members can deposit small amounts over time and are rewarded with 15% more to spend and can save money to shop with when suits them.

“I hope [Xero co-founder] Rod Drury reads this and gets in touch,” she giggles.

Over the years she has designed and built a repertoire of styles for different body shapes and gained an innate understanding of how fabric should fall to flatter.

Even in the early IPG days, Knuefermann’s designs have been likened to Halston as a style reference point – glamorous, minimalist and elegant.

From 2005 to 2008, TK had a second store on Auckland’s High St in an underground space beside Workshop Denim. High St was buzzing as a fashion destination, however, when the scene began to turn rough, staff safety became the priority and she closed the doors “because you never knew who was going to come down those stairs”.

In 2010, her TK label was made under licence in Portugal for distribution in Italy, Ireland and Portugal and featured in Vogue Brazil. It was so well received in Europe that it gave her confidence in her brand identity and in 2015 she rebranded from TK Store to Knuefermann. Up until that point she was super shy to use her name and TK was a good way to hide behind it, she admits.

The opening of a second store on Fanshawe St in 2015 provided a showcase for the brand and an invitation to open New Zealand Fashion Week 2018 as the “Mercedes-Benz Presents” designer followed.

Running two stores suddenly made everything feel heavy, like work, when it had previously always been fun so when the Fanshawe St lease ended in 2021 she happily let it go. (Though fans will be happy to read that she’s just re-signed her lease in Ponsonby.)

Customers over the years include many well-known celebrities, though in typical Knuefermann style it is not something she trumpets. To her every client is a celeb.

What she is happy to talk about is her obsession with black. It’s rare to see her wear anything else, especially when travelling as she likes to be light on her feet and usually just takes carry-on luggage. “It’s such an easy colour. You can make it really casual as well as luxurious. It can be day and night.”

It’s one of the reasons she produced Ravenhue, a capsule collection of what she considers to be wardrobe essentials – though they’re constantly being fine-tuned.

“I love the energy and excitement of fresh styles and the sense of evolving the brand and refining all the time,” she says. “That’s every designer’s mission. To do it better every time with better fabrics and cuts.”

Knuefermann clothing is also seasonless and having her own store enables her to not over-produce runs and to be more sustainable. She is currently evaluating the use of mushroom leather.

And her sewing machine is still out the back of the shop in case a client urgently needs a hem done.

Highlights from NZFW: Kahuria

From personal style to the biggest moments.

All The Best Street Style From New Zealand Fashion Week: Kahuria 2025. The Viva team charts the most interesting and stylish looks spotted outside New Zealand Fashion Week.

What The Viva Team Is Wearing To New Zealand Fashion Week: Kahuria 2025. Treasured vintage, considered new purchases and borrowed garments we’d rather not return – the Viva team considers the stories and surrounding economies of our wardrobes at New Zealand Fashion Week: Kahuria.

Karen Walker’s Return To The New Zealand Fashion Week Runway Was Chaos, Just As She Planned. Fashion designer Karen Walker has always delighted in presenting the unexpected.

Taika Waititi Walks The Runway At New Zealand Fashion Week Opening Show. New Zealand Fashion Week: Kahuria kicks off at Shed 10, with sparkling NZ stars dressed in treasures from the archives.