When Karameli Schmidt, owner and founder of Kara’s, took to the catwalk in Sydney, Australia for the first time last year, the response was immediate. Her collection – which had been tightly packed into five large suitcases – sold out on the night of her fashion exhibition.
Passionate about her unique island style of fashion, she says she tries to emphasise Samoa’s culture and traditional features in her designs, intertwining them with the country’s lustrous natural forestry and environment.
Known and trusted in Samoa, Karas creates uniquely designed clothing with that island feel and touch, with an emphasis on originality. She is emphatic about what makes the final product: “I always make sure I don’t design or paint the same thing twice. I want each clothing item I make to be uniquely different from the rest,” she says.
Her fashion story began when she was regularly travelling across the Pacific as an air hostess. She identified an opportunity to start importing ready-made clothing from the US and New Zealand to Samoa. Today, as a mother of three and grandmother of three who retains an elegance and style about her, she focuses her products to locally, Samoan-made and designed clothing.
The Karas range extends from the traditional puletasi to men’s shirts and sulu. She also caters for the demands of modern fashion with uniquely designed and sewn two-pieces, sun dresses, ballgowns, ladies’ tops and skirts, children’s clothing and wedding gowns.
The photo shoot for SPASIFIK was held at Auckland’s historic Alberton House. It displays a variety of Kara’s designs – each custom-made and designed to enhance the wearers’ natural attributes, with Kara using her own beautifully screen-printed materials for each garment.
While she continues to design, cut and sew her own clothing, with an increasing demand from clients, she now employs two assistant seamstresses and three hand painting and printing assistants. The inspiration behind her fashion is a “nagging need to make people look beautiful.”
Kara emphasises the Samoan people, who she refers to as “my people”, are her main inspiration, ensuring there is a touch of Samoa in every garment.
But the decision to go international was identifying an opportunityfrom the 2009 global financial crisis.
“With Samoa’s small population, only an elite minority can afford to continue to buy more expensive clothing,” Kara says, “So we decided to look at other markets.”
This is where PITIC – the Pacific Islands Trade & Investment Commission – became part of her expansion story. PITIC Acting Trade Commissioner, Louisa Sifakula, says for Pacific Island exporters seeking to enter the New Zealand marketplace there can be pitfalls.
“Our role was strongly geared around export promotion and included help with brand and website design,” she says. “Karas was a particularly exciting concept to introduce to the New Zealand marketplace. What’s so special about her clothes is that Kara is emphatic her brand is not just another ‘exclusive label’ but rather an all inclusive service which complements each wearer’s personality.”
Her shop in Papatoetoe now has a new focus of modern tropical designs to suit New Zealand’s multi-cultural communities and weather.
Regardless of shape or size, Kara believes “everyone is beautiful.”
“We can enhance each person’s natural attributes with the right design and clothing. After all, the garment should be an extension of the beauty which already exists within.”
www.karas.co.nz
