Dame Denise L’Estrange-Corbet is arguably one of the most influential names in New Zealand Fashion. With an illustrious career of more than thirty years as the creative force behind WORLD, Dame Denise has come a long way since her upbringing in London.
Dame Denise attended evening classes for dressmaking as a teenager in the United Kingdom, and in particular enjoyed the creative process of making something from nothing.
“To watch a garment unfold into 3D from a 2D sketch is quite amazing, and not as easy as one might think. When you have a creative personality, you have to have an outlet, whatever that may be, some have more than one creative outlet.”
After finishing school, Dame Denise would go into office work. Although she was earning good money, she was bored with the office environment.
She later attended the London College of Fashion, which is now known as the University of the Arts London, as a full-time student for two years. She admits that she did not know exactly what it would entail, but she was a fast learner.
“I made some horrific outfits but made some wonderful friends that I still keep in touch with today, we laugh about what we created now, but it's all a learning curve.”
After her studies, she got a job working for the late Scott Crolla, whom she describes as ‘the darling of Dover Street in the 80s.’
“He was so outspoken, and I would stand there with my eyes wide open as he would lay into the biggest writers and stylists for Vogue, Marie Claire, Tatler etc. and tell them the jobs they were doing were crap, and they would shout back, but they never not used him.”
She travelled to Tokyo with Crolla to set up his store and said that she met the most incredible people whom she still keeps in touch with from her days there.
After returning to New Zealand in the 1980s, Dame Denise was working in retail where she met Francis Hooper, and the idea for WORLD was launched.
Founded in 1989, WORLD would soon emerge at the forefront of New Zealand’s fashion industry. Dame Denise confesses that of all her experience in her career, it is failure that motivates her most of all.
“I don't care about money, what people think of me or my brand, I don't care about being invited to the right 'parties', failure is the only thing that motivates me.”
She said that she has never been one to follow mainstream fashion trends, and has always marched to the beat of her own drum. She likes innovators and people who like to get on with their work, not sit around and talk about it.
When asked if she would give any advice to a younger self, she said that she wouldn’t. She believes that you learn through taking adversity, and without that, it would be plain sailing.
“You have to take challenges head on, and it makes the wins so much better.”
Dame Denise is now entering her thirty-fourth year with WORLD, and continues to inspire the new generations of New Zealand’s fashion industry time and time again.
