MAIN PHOTOGRAPH: Models at the 10th anniversary party parade the current autumn–winter 2003 range. ABOVE AND LEFT: The début of a second label, Laurie Foon, a surprise addition to L’Oréal New Zealand Fashion Week autumn–winter 2003.

TARFISH celebrated its 10th anniversary earlier this year in its home town of Wellington, New Zealand, with the city's A-list, former customers and staff and their friends packed into its flagship Willis Street store.
   In this issue of Lucire, we travel down memory lane to the spring 1997 collection that was the first feature story in the magazine. In it, we trace Starfish's origins, where it got its name and the $133 which founders Laurie and Miriam Foon first made.
   Since then, Starfish has been a mainstay of Lucire coverage: its stand against a motorway bypass through the city, its Activate range, its first appearance at L'Oréal New Zealand Fashion Week and, at the autumn-winter collections, the launch of a second label,

In the last 10 years, the label has stood for not only great, liberating clothing, but social activism

Laurie Foon. In the last 10 years, the label has stood for not only great, liberating clothing—the principle of which is explained in our republication of our first article—but social activism. Laurie Foon is not scared to stand by a cause and champion it.
   It’s probably why Starfish has been such a favourite Down Under, where people aren’t scared to have convictions and viewpoints—and voice them. New Zealand, being a fairly egalitarian society where tipping is considered both unnecessary and politically incorrect, is a melting-pot of voices. Starfish’s activism is one of those welcome, added ingredients that has ensured that, despite exports, it has refreshingly not become a mainstream, establishment (read overly commercial and boring) brand over the last decade.
   The hip and trendy urbanite associates with the Starfish vision of both action and liberation—in our original feature, Foon told the author how growing up in Wainuiomata, New Zealand, pushed her to work beyond her boundaries.

continued