Friday, October 2, 2009

Katki people



I have Pebbles Hooper to thank for first alerting me to Areez Katki. New Zealand fashion royalty (Hooper is the daughter of World co-founders Denise L'Estrange-Corbet and Francis Hooper), the Auckland hipster was rocking one of Katki's very distinctive hand-knitted dresses on Day One of Air New Zealand Fashion Week. I TwitPic'd a shot, only to spot another ANZFW delegate wearing a similar dress the following day. Although not officially part of the event, Katki seemed to be omnipresent at it. When I learned that his work had been given pride of place for the week in the front window of James Dobson's cool three month-old Children of Vision store in St Kevin's Arcade, I headed to take some shots and have a chat (albeit one with crapola picture/sound - but you get the gist).




Comparisons to Michelle Jank seem obvious here.

In 2000, Jank became the first designer to be accorded a solo show at Australian Fashion Week straight out of design college and she was buoyed by media hype.

Many Australians would recall the anecdote of leading British retailer Joan Burstein being so excited by Jank's debut collection of "demi couture" vintage doily-festooned dresses, Burstein raced backstage to secure an international exclusive, leaving her handbag on her chair.

In the interview I mention that Jank had trouble producing garments after the initial rush. My apologies, that should in fact have been, Jank had trouble selling the garments, some of which had high four figure price points. It later emerged that Burstein had not sold a single dress.



Katki's price points do not seem particularly high - under NZ$1000 for example for a one-off dress.

A designer himself (under the Jimmy D label) Dobson, pictured below, clearly has a good eye for emerging brands. Children of Vision is a great little store.






9 comments:

A Colourful Guy Drowning said...

While I'm sure this isn't going to gain me any popularity points with the Auckland hipster scene (considering the knives I had thrown at my back by some of them during ANZFW 09 it can't much worse LOL!) I've seen this trend before during the mid 70's and I've seen it much better executed at a much lower price point. Remember macramé? ;)

Anonymous said...

myf shepherd + rachel rutt = MUTT

Chloe said...

What a cutie!

Look forward to seeing what he does next :)

Thought his accent sounded American/Canadian at the beginning though, and then ended sounding English??

Has he lived in NZ his whole life?

Anonymous said...

omg it's Areez! I went to school with him, he went to Pak. And he was born in Dubai I think... Very interesting person. Great to see his work out there, I remember he took Fabric class at high school.

Anonymous said...

God what next, we will all be wearing sacks! Not a good look! Pebbles would not know style if it hit her in the face!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Rodarte wannabe.

Anonymous said...

I too went to school with Areez and a friend. He is incredibly talented and has a great spirit. I wish him well with all his endevours. He did indeed take fabric at school and I would suspect he would take great pleasure in telling the old fabric teacher to stuff her. She didnt think he was much at all. Though I think we all knew he would go far. Good luck and Well done!! <3

Style_cutter said...

I think areez katki is a carbon copy of RODARTE and he is all talk!!!really though that shit is EASY to knit any grandmother would laugh at his prices! Who knows his grandmother could of knitted his peices. Seen it all before darling.

Jessica grubisa said...

Pebbles is brought style lmfao areez hmm no comment Haha all is I say is his stuff looks like rodarte the textures colours everything .

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