Pretty PRACTICAL
A quest to integrate delicate designs with practicality has seen Christchurch-born designer Kate Watts produce a stunning range of merino gloves, scarves and an assortment of eye-catching homewares.
THIS COULD ONLY be Dunedin! In a lovely terracotta brick building in North East Valley (that was previously a butcher’s shop, more recently a picture framer’s and possibly once a general store) is Kate Watts’ shop, showroom and workroom. It is a spacious place, with a large table in the middle of the showroom, an eye-catching display of gloves, scarves and homewares against the wall and in the centre of the room, looking ready to rock ’n’ roll, sits a drumkit. Yes, a drumkit, because this homewares designer also plays the drums.
On this chilly autumn morning, Kate Watts welcomes me with a huge smile, hot tea in a china teapot placed on a ceramic trivet delicately poured into the prettiest cups and saucers, and a scroll to eat. As I can immediately appreciate, aesthetics are important to this Christchurch-born, Dunedin-based designer and finding the pretty in the practical – whether it’s in her fingerless gloves, a linen teatowel or a canvas backpack – is her constant quest.
‘I don’t think that beauty is frivolous or unimportant,’ she confirms. ‘Our lives are complicated and busy. It makes a difference to have lovely, decorative, beautiful things to make you smile while you go about your day,’ she says.
And this drive to coalesce delicate design details with practicality is what has fuelled Kate’s main range of merino gloves and scarves for the last 15 years.
Her range can include 90 different glove styles crafted from 10 different prints and nine or 10 colours including black, grey, green and red. That’s around 5,000 pairs of gloves per season, selling for around $50 each. Gloves cut by a small, local Dunedin manufacturer, printed in Kate’s workshop behind the showroom, machined in Dunedin and Canterbury and then returned to the workshop to be pressed and wrapped.
‘I actually distribute to two different markets,’ Kate explains. ‘My Crown & Feathers range is all about Kiwiana, so my stockists here want consistency of styles and designs. Under my own name, Kate Watts, I produce a fashion range which is all about newness and the latest trends.’ Kate points to a simple feather pattern on a pair of fingerless gloves that is still her bestseller, although a cross design which was released in 2012 is another that keeps on warming hands. As well as supplying nearly 100 stockists throughout the country, Kate travels to six of the larger markets closest to Dunedin, such as the Geraldine Summer Fete, where in summer she also sells a range of dishcloths and beautiful linen teatowels.
‘People tend to buy these for gifts. In fact, at least half of what I produce is bought as gifts. I love that my range is beautiful and practical. People working in cold offices, or with poor circulation can choose to wear my fingerless gloves, for example, and they are so grateful that they contact me to thank me. Every item I sell is gift-wrapped in laser-cut gift boxes,’ says Kate. ‘Detail is my thing and I want people to fall in love with the details of my designs.’ Details that have been distilled from her love of learning and a lifetime of creating.
With a father who was an aircraft engineer who liked to make furniture, you could say that making things is in Kate’s DNA. ‘At age five, a cousin taught me how to make houses out of cardboard boxes. Then it was making clothes for my dolls and making my own clothes when I was about 12. We were often told to go and make something. I even had two desks in my bedroom because I wasn’t tidy, but also because I always had so much on the go,’ she explains.
This is also a woman who has studied her craft. In 2001 she graduated from the Christchurch Polytechnic (now Ara) with a Bachelor of Design and Craft and almost six years ago she managed a Master of Visual Arts (textiles) at Otago Polytechnic while also becoming a mother. ‘My oneand-a-half-year master took three years because I had my son Fabien halfway through – he’ll be six in a few weeks,’ she says with a hint of astonishment.
Conversation turns to the eye-catching range of homewares that are displayed on shelves against the wall. ‘I’ve been working on a new homewares range since 2015 and it is great to get my designs out of my workbooks and into reality,’ Kate smiles. The range is called ‘Among the Sparrows’ and includes iPad cases, bum bags and duffle bags. I comment on the two framed art prints that are displayed as well as hangings of a dolphin skeleton and some coral. Exquisite and detailed, these are absolute works of art. To create these, Kate has used a Katazome technique which is a centuries-old Japanese method of dyeing fabric using a resist paste applied through a stencil. ‘The stencil alone takes about 20 hours to cut,’ she explains, so this painstaking process is a labour of love. ‘It is a very analogue experience involving hand and eye which is a nice change from creating most of my range in Photoshop, which is a largely digital process,’ she says.
Describing her creative process, Kate reveals, ‘In the degree I did, drawing was central to every process, so drawing is a strong part of my practice. Most of my design ideas come from nature. I often start with a walk through native bush, or I go to the botanic gardens or to the museum. I grew up in Christchurch and my grandmother took me to the museum there often and I would spend endless hours [looking at] the insect drawers,’ she remembers.
For now, her ranges keep her busy working full-time and being a solo mum. She plans to launch her homewares range from April onwards, on Instagram and to sell from this building, using it as an ‘open studio’. ‘I’ll put an Open sign on the door because as well as doing business, I like to feel part of the community,’ Kate explains.
As for the drumkit? ‘I learnt as a kid and in Oamaru where I spent four years, we had no neighbours, so I kept the drumkit in the lounge. I played in a band there and since I am never going to be the world’s best drummer, I aspire only to be a bad punk drummer. The sound is rough and raw but I enjoy playing ... maybe I’ll keep it in the showroom,’ she muses. Well, it looks pretty and it’s practical so it fits right into Kate Watts’ design aesthetic, so why not?
‘The stencil alone takes about 20 hours to cut,’ Kate explains, so this painstaking process is a
labour of love.