Street Cred: Always leaning towards learning
Great style, well put together, or just someone who catches our eye. Every week reporter Carly Gooch gets out and about to discover the people behind the clothes in Canterbury.
Study, education and learning are top of mind for these women spotted at Christchurch’s Northlands Mall, Westfield Riccarton and Merivale Mall. Bev Kitto, 60, is a learning assistant (formerly known as teacher aide) who lives in Shirley, Christchurch.
She’s looking forward to her annual Christmas holiday in Pōhara, Tasman, with extended family.
Kitto says she’s been going there since she was 16.
Once you go to Pōhara you never want leave, she says.
As soon as she arrives on December 27, it will be all about relaxing with nearly 40 people from her extended family, she says. They’re not all there at the same time though. They “come and go”, with the “young ones” heading out to New Year’s Eve celebrations.
“It’s amazing, there’s so much to do,” she says of Golden Bay.
In the evenings, the family sit around, chat and play games, she says.
It’s a tent and caravan city; “it’s great”. Kitto’s clothes and bag are all pre-loved. Her Witchery shirt is paired with Portmans pants and a Moana Rd bag, and her shoes are from Repertoire.
Hannah Wilkes, 38, is a hairdresser from Culverden.
She lives with her husband and their three children in the small North Canterbury town, which she moved to from Christchurch nine years ago for her husband’s job.
Wilkes has her own hair salon on Culverden’s main street, having been in the industry for 21 years.
“Approaching 40, you look at your life a bit differently,” she says, noting it prompted her to take on a bachelor of counselling degree.
“I wanted to help people.”
She wears a Brixton hat, a Roxy dress and a bag by Furmoo’s Boho range. The shoes are Converse. “I always wear Chucks because they go with everything,” Wilkes says.
Taylah Eder, 26, is a retail manager living in Kaiapoi.
Eder has a goal to combine two of her passions: psychology and sports.
She got into rowing at high school, which ended up taking her to the United States on a scholarship at an Oklahoma university.
She says it was “very random” going to the South Central state, but it had a good rowing school.
Unsure of what she wanted to study, she gave psychology a go and “ended up really loving it”, she says.
Oklahoma was her home for four and a half years before returning to Christchurch during Covid and finishing the last few months of her course online. Now she has a psychology degree.
She no longer rows, but now competes in CrossFit.
Her shirt is Repertoire, the jeans are Lee, she wears Minx shoes and the bag is from Kmart.