Putting fashion into sheepskin

Press, 25 February 1978, Page 10

Putting fashion into sheepskin

By the Tourist and Publicity Department

Knight Tailors, Ltd, of Invercargill, is a fashion designing and manufacturing company which has put fashion into sheepskin. The secret of its success in winning an export award against though world competition is the replacement of the old Kiwi doctrine “she'll be right,” with a unique factory operation, intensive staff training and a company pre-occupation with “quality” that borders on fanaticism. The managing director, Mr Robert Boult, said he hit on the idea for the export industry in 1962, while he was attending a twelve-month course at a tailoring and cutting academy in London. “It was the coldest winter I have ever experienced in my life,” he recalled. “It had any winter I’ve ever seen in Southland beaten hands down.” Mr Boult noted that many Londoners kept out the cold with sheepskin coats and he managed to survive the British winter after buying one himself. “I realised that, with 66M sheep in New Zealand, this type of coat was a logical export item and especially for Southland with its predominance in sheep farming.” When he returned to Invercargill, Mr Boult set up his own tailoring business and later produced some sheepskin coats as an experiment to determine what machinery and staff he would require. At (this time in New Zealand a few sheepskins were processed into rugs, but most of the pelts from the export lamb kill were sent to fellmongers where the wool was skimmed off and the skins were sent for tanning. Slink skins on dead, newborn lambs were buried with the carcases. Mr Boult called in his brother, Graeme Boult, who resigned as circulation manager of the “Southland Tinies” newspaper to become the marketing director of Knight Tailors, Ltd.

The company’s present Northern Hemisphere range of natural pelt garni e n t s features 25 women’s styles and 17 styles for men. A similar range is produced for the Southern Hemisphere in nappa leathers, suede, shearling and slink lamb pelts. The sales manager, Mr Peter Mason, explained that the company had to export to expand and its sales were affected by the seasonal appeal of the woollen coats and jackets. One of the difficulties faced by the company on the export market was in designing fashion coats comprising six to nine sheep skins and up to 30 slink skins. The New Zealand three-month-old lamb, killed for export, provides a sueded shearling pelt of five to six square feet. In con-

trast the Australian merino provides a pelt of eight to nine square feet and some American sheep give pelts measuring lOsq. ft. In competing against Australian and American sheepskin coat manufacturers Knight Tailors had the advantage of a softer and more supple New Zealand pelt, but they had to overcome the designing disadvantage caused by joining a number of pelts into one garment. This problem was over? come by creative skill and imagination in fashion designing, allowing the numerous panels in the coats to enhance their appearance instead of detracting from their appeal. Coats and jackets also had to . be styled or adapted to different export markets. For example, the Japanese are smaller on the average compared with most North Americans. The company now has a separate design section which keeps up with overseas fashion trends and

which strives to design the garments to different markets. “Another problem is our isolation from the rest of the world,” said Mr Boult. “Most businessmen in New York or Toronto have never heard of New Zealand and . when they find out where it is — at the ends of the earth — they are even more doubtful. “It’s a. bit like a businessman arriving in New Zealand from the Chatham Islands and trying to sell a sophisticated, manufactured product. “However, we stress the handcrafting and high quality of our coats and jackets and we can point to Scotland’s famous Harris tweed, which is made by island crofters in the Outer Hebrides. “We can’t compete on a price level with nations

like Japan and Taiwan, which mass-produce their products,” said Mr Boult. “1 firmly believe New Zealand’s best chances lie in high-quality, labour-in-tensive industries.” It is clear that special skills . are required of the workers who handcraft the garments. Mr Boult explained that a sewing machinist working with cloth could easily rectify her mistakes, as the needle merely parted the fibres of the fabric and the stitches could be retracted. “With a natural pelt, the needle perforates the skin leaving a permanent hole. One inaccurate stitch can ruin an expensive pelt,” he said. An applicant for a job faces a panel interview and is then asked to take an aptitude test. If she is suitable, the prospective employee joins the company for a probationary two-week training course and at the end of this period, her progress is assessed. She may then qualify to

complete an intensive 16week training course as a cutter or machinist — equivalent to a two-year apprenticeship. At the one-acre factory more than 100 workers specialise in three types of garment production. The coats and jackets are not manufactured on the traditional "cut, make and trim” production lines; only two people — a cutter and a machinist — work on each individual garment. A slink cutter is teamed with a slink machinist, a suede shearling cutter with her own machinist and the leather-and-suede cutter is teamed with a machinist who also works with the same materials. Specialised lighting has been installed at the factory to help the cutters who have the difficult job of choosing the right suede shearling or slink skins of the same colour and shades to match each garment. A cutter may have to sort through 150 slink pelts to select 30 skins for one coat of the same colour, shade, wool texture and handling quality. Once the skins are selected, the cutter is confronted by a sophisticated jig-saw puzzle. She places cards depicting the various sections of a coat on the different pelts with the aim of fully utilising the area of each skin. Finally, the various sections are carefully cut and handed to her partner on a sewing machine who sews the sections together into a coat or. jacket. The finished coats' are trimmed and groomed and both girls sign their names on a guarantee card which states they personally handcrafted the garment. “Not only is this a personal guarantee to the buyer, but it also gives the girls a measure of job satisfaction which is not found in similar industries,” said Mr Boult. To avoid any wastage from the pelts, the company has started to make smaller products like hats and gloves at a separate factory which receives cutoffs from the coat factory. Mr Graeme Boult, who has recently been living in Seattle to oversee marketing in the United States, said delivery problems had been largely overcome by air freighting. “We can send a consignment of coats from the factory on a Friday night and have them delivered in the United States on the Tuesday,” he said.