Sep 15th 2008 1:02pm

When Denise L'Estrange-Corbet and her husband Francis Hooper started fashion label World neither of them thought 20 years later they would be celebrating being part of New Zealand fashion history.  From its humble beginnings World has taken on the world and blazed a trail of "firsts" for New Zealand fashion.

World was one of four New Zealand designers who in 1997 showed their work at the Sydney fashion week, the first time any designers from this country had been asked to show internationally.  In 1999 World was the first New Zealand label to show in London Fashion Week and in 2004 it was the first fashion label to have a major retrospective at the Auckland museum.  In 2002 Denise L'Estrange-Corbet was the first female New Zealand fashion designer to be honoured by the Queen, being made of Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.  "We never tried to be first, then you would have had to set yourself a goal.  "For us it's just happened."

Now her book All That Glitters, another first for her, caps off a remarkable career and life story, as World prepares to give its first show in four years at New Zealand Fashion Week this week.  Despite the title L'Estrange-Corbet details a life which at times is anything but glittering, as she writes about her childhood in London and grim battle with depression.
Writing some aspects of the book was difficult, she says.

"But I guess when it's part of your life you're accustomed to it but some days I had to psych myself up to write the book."
The loneliness was one of the tougher parts of writing, "because I'm never alone".
The book gives a no holds barred description of her battle with depression and how she continues to live with it.
"If I said all the horrible things were in the past that would be too easy." Neither of the two people closest to her, husband Francis Hooper -- whom she says never read a book in their 20 years together -- nor their daughter Pebbles, has read her book . "But they trust me and what I would have written."

L'Estrange-Corbet and Hooper, who own eight World stores in New Zealand and Australia , have recently separated, a factor which she says will not affect the label.  "We will only make it stronger."  It's a long way from the dream the pair shared in 1989 when at a bus stop on Queen Street they put in $200 each to start up the business. Despite rumours to the contrary the book is a not about settling scores with some fashion industry insiders.  "That's not me.  "A lot of people may have expected it to be a bitchy book about the industry but if you do that you narrow it down to who would want to read about it.

"The housewife in Invercargill isn't going to want to read about people who she doesn't know (about) or care what they get up to."  The closest L'Estrange-Corbet comes to settling an old score is when she gives her side of the story in the now infamous spat with former fashion editor Stacey Gregg who several years ago wrote about not being seated in the front row at a World show.  "She kicked up such a stink."  Gregg, she says, wrote a personal attack on L'Estrange-Corbet in a Sunday magazine and never once mentioned the clothes.  "Every other single fashion person that day was in the same row, I hadn't singled her out.  "I just never really come across such stupidity in the media to me.
"I just thought it was pathetic."  L'Estrange-Corbet says she never had an opportunity to give her side.  "I thought it was very unfair because it was untrue."

L'Estrange-Corbet says after 20 years World are now the "old kids on the block" but many design school graduates don't realise the hard work which has gone into the label. "It all comes down to stamina and that's what young people don't have, they want it and they want it now."  In the early days of World the couple lived day to day.
"We had to have a good Friday because rent was due Monday." World was conceived because both needed a job and both liked fashion.  "We never thought it was a long term picture -- perhaps if we had we would have been far more successful.
"People would say `What's your five-year business plan?' and we'd say we don't even know what a business plan is, let alone have a five-minute plan.  "We didn't want to be form fillers, we wanted to be creative.
"We went from being anti-establishment and then all of a sudden the establishment was noticing us."
Prior to World, she says there were designers in New Zealand but they were really just people with clothes shops.
World was different because the "stores were just an extension of who we are".

All of L'Estrange-Corbet's share of royalties from her book will go to the Mental Health Foundation, marking its 10th anniversary and the 10 years since she fronted a nationwide campaign for it. Despite living with depression her entire life L'Estrange-Corbet says she didn't realise how much of a stigma there was attached to it.  "No one talked about it when I was younger.  "There was no help and I might have been very different if there had been.  "I struggled with it on my own because I didn't know what I had, I thought I was so different from everyone else."  Coming out and saying she had depression was an enormous weight lifted, she says.  "Something only has a huge effect on you when it's a secret."

World's show at Fashion Week is a highlight among the designers showing, proving the enduring appeal of the label and the high standard people have come to expect from them.  "We'll be here for another 20 years."

*All That Glitters is available now.

Credit:BELINDA MCCAMMON NZPA

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