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   There are baggy cinched-ankle satin pants, sexy cotton pinafores, and embroidered T-shirts, perforated tulle overlays, crystal beaded dresses and sheer shell tops.
   It is not hard to see why her clothes are favourites with countless Hollywood celebrities including Jennifer Lopez, Courtney Love, Kate Winslet, Uma Thurman and Cate Blanchett.
   Better known in New York than in her native New Zealand, Taylor’s label generates an annual turnover of US$12 million per annum—not a bad effort for a Kiwi chick of waif-like proportions who arrived in New York 11 years ago with NZ$600 in her pocket.
   Taylor, 33, admits the road to success has not exactly been easy but that has never stopped her.
   ‘It was a day-by-day thing. When I first started I had the philosophy, "If anyone can, a Kiwi can. Build it and they will come," and I think that really helped,’ she said.
   Her secret to her success is working hard and

‘I recently heard an actor say, “I have never been hot, I have just been lukewarm and have been floating on the under­current because I have always had work.” A lot of young kids come out and they are huge for a minute and then go down, whereas we have always just been steady, which I like’

doing ‘all the boring stuff that makes the business really successful’.
   ‘New York is cut-throat but if you make a product that people buy and you deliver on time and your price point is right, it is completely doable,’ she said.
   Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker is one of Taylor’s newest fans. She discovered her through her hairdresser, who continually wore Taylor’s clothing on set.
   ‘She called our showroom and spoke to our salesperson and said, “Hi, it is Sarah Jessica Parker here," and he was like. "Oh yeah, Rebecca.”
    ‘He thought it was me playing a practical joke and then he heard her baby crying in the background, and he was like, “Oh, hi, what can I do for you?”’
   Taylor is a big fan of Sex and the City and ‘any HBO show’ and is chuffed SJ (as she is known) will be wearing a few of her ensembles on the next series.
   Also a big fan of the show, I asked her if it really is true that it is hard to find a man in New York.
   ‘Totally, I have so many single friends it is not even funny,’ said Taylor.
   ‘I am one of the lucky ones. I met a straight guy on a blind date. We were set up by a gay friend of mine and a gay friend of his.’
   She is speaking of her husband Wayne Pate, with whom she lives in Brooklyn with their Tibetan terrier Lucy and cats Daisy and Tittens.
   Taylor feels very fortunate that her clothes have such a strong celebrity following though she keeps a low profile herself.
   ‘I recently heard an actor say something like, “I have never been hot, I have just been lukewarm and have been floating on the undercurrent because I have always had work.” A lot of young kids come out and they are huge for a minute and then go down, whereas we have always just been steady, which I like.’
   Despite this, her life is still a long way from where she started in her hometown Wellington, New Zealand where her first job was making outfits for Viet Cong frog puppets for director Peter Jackson’s movie Meet the Feebles.
   She got the job through a government-run Access course in fashion design set up for people on the unemployment benefit.
   ‘It totally saved my life and put me on the right road,’ she said.
   Not consciously a rebel—‘just directionless’—Taylor confessed, ‘I kind of got kicked out of school’.
   ‘It was the ’80s and all I wanted to do was wear a little eyeliner but the nuns [at St Catherine’s] were having none of it. They used to meet me at the door and take me to the bathroom and make me wash off my make-up,’ she said.
   Taylor drifted in and out of jobs, including cleaning toilets at the Plaza Hotel and selling make-up at a pharmacy, before ending up on the unemployment benefit.
   Now that she has found her calling, life is ‘mad, mad, mad’. It is about to get madder as Taylor adds an annual trip to Australia and New Zealand to her already busy travel schedule that includes travelling to Japan and Europe three times a year.
   In Japan she has launched her own shoes, sunglasses and Rebecca Taylor candy, while this season she is launching her own hosiery range into Bloomingdale’s, New York.
   She is also currently in the process of relocating her flagship boutique in Japan, where she also has 20 signature outlets.
   Her next big focus will be her show at New York Fashion Week in September.
   Since launching herself on the runway in fall 1999, Taylor has only missed two shows.
   ‘Our show was on 9-11 and we missed the one after that [as well] because we were still recovering mentally, emotionally and physically and it felt like everyone needed time to heal. I still can’t watch anything on it. Every time I see a fireman on my street, I cry.’ •

Carolyn Enting is fashion editor of The Dominion Post and a senior correspondent with Lucire.