How The Tailor & His Lover began
It started with my window cleaner.
I’d gone to Bali to be a creative director for a company. I was meant to be there for a stretch and then come home again, as tends to happen with me I became engrossed and stayed eight years. Somewhere in the middle of that life — between a child at an International school there, work, humidity, and the general Bali sense that time is slightly more flexible — I started designing and making clothes.
Not as a business plan. Not as a five-year vision. Simply because a friend said I should, because I could and it would be a great idea.
I wanted pieces that didn’t quite exist the way I wanted them to in Bali. Things that felt easy and beautiful, but also properly made. And once you start trying to make one thing, you very quickly discover you need someone who can translate an idea in your head into something you can actually cut out and sew.
I sew, but I needed someone who was an expert at drafting patterns.
My window cleaner’s wife could.
That still makes me smile.
She introduced me to one man (who was and still is the foundation of my business) and he knew another — without any grand intention or dramatic “launch” moment — a small team appeared. Over time, they became my team. Not a factory. Not a supplier I rotate through. The same people, year after year, making clothes only for me.
They are all men who sew – Ayu the only woman is my other rock runs things with absolute precision.
And for ten years they have been crafting beautiful clothes for women — women who know exactly what they want, how they want it to feel, and what they will not tolerate. The things that matter. The weight of a hem. The way a sleeve sits so it doesn’t annoy you all day. The necklines that behave. The cut that allows you to move like a normal person, not pose like a coat hanger.
This isn’t a production line. There is no rushing and no cost-cutting logic applied to centimetres of fabric. Each garment is made by one person from start to finish, at their own pace. They are paid per garment. It is slower, more considered — and it means the work is done with care.
Every seam is French seamed — sewn twice — because the inside matters. I want the finishing to be as good as the outside. Nothing scratchy. Nothing messy. Nothing that says “that’ll do”, something that will last forever.
I named the brand The Tailor & His Lover deliberately. The tailor is structured, precise, considered. The lover is instinctive — slightly bolder, a little flamboyant. The clothes live in the tension between the two. The tailoring holds everything together. The lover makes it worth wearing.
I came home to New Zealand seven years ago. My team stayed in Bali. Same people. Same hands. Same standards. The window cleaner is presumably still cleaning windows (sadly not mine anymore) and I owe him more than he knows.
The Tailor & His Lover is made slowly, by hand, by people who care. You can feel it the moment you pick it up.
That isn’t an accident. That’s ten years of the same hands knowing exactly what we want.