As she prepares to showcase the latest collection of her eponymous brand taylor at New Zealand Fashion Week 2026, Vicki Taylor reflects on three generations of fashion lineage, navigating industry turbulence, and why nurturing the next wave of New Zealand designers is her greatest legacy.
In an era where
fashion often operates at breakneck speed, dictated by fleeting micro-trends and hyper-commercial algorithms, Vicki Taylor remains a calm force of considered proficiency. Whether hands-on styling a customer at one of her namesake boutiques or hosting elegant events at her multi-brand design haven The Shelter, Taylor possesses the polished presence of someone whose relationship with fashion is woven into her DNA. Taylor is proud of her third-generation garment industry lineage in Aotearoa.
“My grandfather was involved with a company called Broadbanks, which in those days was an apparel and haberdashery business working out of Queen St back when everything happened right in the centre of the city,” Taylor says.
That rag-trade connection deepened with her father, Grahame Taylor, a prominent textile wholesaler who ran his own business.
“That’s probably where my passion for textiles really came from,” she recalls. “He would travel overseas when I was a kid and buy amazing textiles from all around the world, bringing them back from Japan, Italy or the US.”
Fashion designer Vicki Taylor is proud of her third-generation garment industry lineage. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
For a young Taylor, school holidays were spent on the warehouse floor among bolts of fabric. She lugged around big rolls and learned about minimums, observing what designers would purchase to create their collections. While it made an impression on her young mind, Taylor was initially resistant to entering the industry.
Driven to carve out her own path, she explored fine arts and visual design. She was accepted into the prestigious Elam School of Fine Arts but instead opted for a comprehensive one-year art and design foundation course, a decision that shaped her multi-disciplinary creative perspective.
“We had two-week modules doing sculpture, painting, photography, graphic design, interior design and architecture. I didn’t try that hard at fashion or textile design, but I seemed to do well anyway and that set me off on my journey.”
Taylor headed to Australia to gain a degree in fashion design. A creative city, Melbourne gave the emerging designer a broader perspective and was an important learning curve.
Returning to Auckland, she continued to hone her craft as head designer for fashion label Suzanne Gregory (now Gregory). Wanting to design her own label, Taylor launched her eponymous brand five years later, opening the doors of her first boutique in March 1999.
“They always say you go into business in something you’re a little bit naive in and I had never been in the retail side of fashion, so of course that was the side I started my business in,” Taylor says, with a laugh.
“But I think that naivety is quite a good philosophy because you’re prepared to just try things and see what works. New Zealanders are great at writing their own pathways through out-of-the-box thinking.”
Starting her own business meant taking on major financial risk. Taylor sold her house, moved in with her parents and took on a retail lease. The workroom was tucked out back where she created the collections that formed the foundation of taylor today.
“I thought I was going to be totally fine running my retail store between getting my garments cut out back on the cutting table. But within that first week, I’d sold out of my whole months’ worth of stock! I was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve completely underestimated this, I’m going to have to employ somebody’.”
Mark Thomson and Vicki Taylor, pictured in 2013 at Alexandra Park Raceway. Photo / Norrie Montgomery
Enter Mark Thomson, Taylor’s husband, whom she met in Melbourne while he was working for menswear label Rembrandt, and later Rodd & Gunn. When Thomson faced a corporate relocation to Australia, the couple decided to make Auckland their permanent home.
Taylor told him, “‘Take three months off and tell me what you really want to do with your life.’ He came back and said, ‘I don’t mind what I do as a job, but I just want to be the best dad’. That threw me a bit because I hadn’t even factored kids into the equation yet, I thought I was just going to be running businesses!”
Third generation in retail himself, Thomson joined to manage operations, establishing a joint dynamic that kept the business resilient while raising the couple’s two sons, now 24 and 21.
“If you look around our industry, there are lots of husband-and-wife teams. This industry consumes you, it’s not a nine-to-five job, so you end up living, eating, sleeping and breathing it. Having Mark there made raising a family possible, and my sons kept my feet on the ground. I’d come home worrying about work, and they’d want me to kick a ball around with them. It keeps life in perspective.”
Over the 27 years Taylor has traded, our country’s fashion landscape has undergone radical structural shifts. When she started, local manufacturing was still thriving and around 45 wholesale textile importers operated nationwide.
Today, that number has dwindled to just five and many locally made garments are produced through a network of outsourced specialists. The competition for customers has also increased with the rise of e-commerce, and keeping those customers engaged means either making your clothes appeal internationally or adapting your local model to capture depth.
Taylor’s response to shifting consumer behaviour was strategic evolution. She expanded by introducing 10 pieces, a relaxed line designed to complement her label’s sharper, architectural silhouettes, and restructured seasonal collections into considered monthly drops to keep her loyal client base engaged across the six-month cycle.
Every Vicki Taylor collection begins with the textiles. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
Being a fabric-led designer, every taylor collection begins with the textiles, mostly sourced from premium European and Japanese mills. Taylor credits her commitment to high-quality fabrics and thoughtful design among the reasons for her brand’s longevity. Watching costs closely with her accountant and listening to her clients has also factored into the label’s success.
“I’m privileged to have dressed some clients for the whole 27 years I’ve been in business. They still come in wearing pieces from my early collections. That longevity is an absolute honour.”
Wanting to expand further, Taylor took a gamble by securing a sprawling 300sq m former industrial laundry just off Ponsonby Rd. In October 2014, she opened the doors to The Shelter, a curated concept space that sits at the intersection of fashion, art and design. What began as an opportunity to house taylor alongside international designers such as Issey Miyake, Rick Owens and Uma Wang, soon evolved into a crucial incubator for local talent.
The Shelter in Ponsonby, Auckland. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
Through The Shelter’s emerging designer programme, Taylor actively mentors and stocks around two dozen up-and-coming labels. She stocked the early collections of now well-known brands Maggie Marilyn and Wynn Hamlyn, and is currently championing the likes of Fringes, Julia Palm, Rhian, and Outer Lines. Taylor subsidises these young businesses with her own, by taking a reduced wholesale margin and paying them weekly to support their cash flow.
“I don’t give them design help, their talent and passion are already incredible,” Taylor says.
“I give them business structure, helping them learn to cost a collection, manage accountancy and transition from sewing every garment yourself to scaling production. When a supplier lets a young designer down, we jump in and advocate for them.”
Jo Knight and Maggie Hewitt of Maggie Marilyn, with Vicki Taylor.
Her commitment to preserving local industry infrastructure is future-focused.
“When we see our factories close and their machines auctioned off, it’s heartbreaking. Keeping manufacturing alive allows young designers to make three or five units of a garment to test the market safely. If we can build a supportive framework for them our entire creative ecosystem grows stronger.”
In a culture saturated with artificial filters and hyper-curated perfection, Taylor advocates for embracing uniqueness, and champions authentic self-expression through thoughtful dressing.
“In all my years in fitting rooms, I’ve met very few women who are completely happy with the way they look. Every woman, regardless of size, harbours self-criticism. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised: I am who I am and I dress for who I am.
“A client once told me she put on her taylor outfit for her corporate job because it was her armour. If I can make a woman feel good, empowered and comfortable through what she wears, then I’ve done my job right.”
Vicki Taylor actively mentors and stocks around two dozen up-and-coming labels at The Shelter. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
Doing her best work extends to the upcoming New Zealand Fashion Week, with taylor and The Shelter again featuring on the schedule.
Taylor is adamant about the event’s importance to the industry and the opportunities it creates.
“NZ Fashion Week is a vital platform for celebrating our creativity. It also gives young designers that dream of seeing their designs under those bright lights, and it shows our unique perspective to the world.”
Vicki Taylor and Kiri Nathan at the New Zealand Fashion Week launch in May. Photo / Ruby Jayne Hamilton
Taylor’s goal for her own event is to create an immersive, inspiring experience that stays with viewers long after the lights go down.
Her brand’s presentation will create a dreamscape not a catwalk, as Taylor reimagines the fashion show format for her Somni collection, which showcases her enduring love of textiles.
With three generations of industry heritage behind her and a thriving ecosystem of emerging talent growing under her wing, Vicki Taylor continues to prove that fashion in Aotearoa is strongest when it evolves with purpose.
The taylor Somni SS26 NZ Fashion Week show is on Tuesday, August 18 at 8pm, at Brad’s, 9/11 Durham Lane, Auckland. Tickets on sale now. Nzfashionweek.com/tickets/taylor
More on fashion in Aotearoa
From those nurturing craft to street stylings and rising talents to support now.