Fashion designer Kate Sylvester to close the business after three decades

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Fashion designer Kate Sylvester has announced the closure of the business after 31 years.

File photo. Fashion designer Kate Sylvester.
Photo: Kate Sylvester

The fashion label will sell its final Summer 24 collection and wind up the business in mid 2025, Sylvester and partner and co-founder Wayne Conway said.

“We want to go out the way we came into this business, still loving what we do and being truly happy to do it”, they said.

Kate Sylvester began her career hand sewing screen-printed t-shirts with a punk rock edge. The Massey fashion design alumni advertised her first streetwear brand Sister via graffiti on the streets of Auckland.

“We started this company with literally nothing more than wild faith in each other and a dream to create clothes that people would wear and love,” the pair said in a joint statement.

“Since the day we opened the doors on that first store in Kitchener Street we have worked incredibly hard for three decades. And now we need to move on to a new chapter in our lives.”

The label had created memorable shows, campaigns and collections on both sides of the Tasman, and mentored and worked with incredibly talented people, “many of whom have gone on to become big names in the industry”, they said.

Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wearing a Kate Sylvester dress at her 2017 swearing-in ceremony.
Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King

Former Fashion Quarterly editor Fiona Hawtin said Sylvester was a one of the stalwarts of New Zealand fashion.

“Everyone wore Kate at one stage” including former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and singer-songwriter Bic Runga, Hawtin told Morning Report.

The designer’s shows were the highlight of any Fashion Week. “She really knew how to make a show that was more [than] about the clothes, it was an emotional event.”

Sylvester never had other brands or labels in her store, and it was logical she would want to close the business rather than sell the name. “Overseas a lot of international designers have sold their names and then they can’t get it back.”