Style: June 16, 2020

16 STYLE | feature
“Sometimes you end up
on the path you weren’t
necessarily intending to end
up on, but things work out
that way,” she says.
Kathryn’s collars are made to last.
popular collars are injected with
signature flair in the form of crystals,
cameos and studs, but are made
to be incredibly robust, with
premium quality saddlery leathers
and rust-free hardware.
Her design journey started when
she was a child and was fascinated
by a sewing machine and all it could
produce. Fashion was also in her
blood, she says, as her grandfather
was a master pattern cutter and
tailor, while her mother was a keen
sewer. Kathryn went from high
school into an advanced diploma
in fashion technology and design at
Christchurch Polytech (today’s Ara
Institute of Canterbury). It was there
she became fascinated with leather.
“I wanted to make a leather jacket
and one of the tutors there had
some knowledge about working
with it. I’ve actually still got that
jacket. It is a pretty beautiful; I did a
good job with it for my first piece of
leatherwork,” she says with a laugh.
She began making a leather
accessories range. It included leather
belts and chokers twisted in unique
3D patterns and was sold to places
like Workshop under her Kathryn
Leah Payne label. At age 25, London
beckoned and it was there that
she worked for fashion houses like
Caroline Charles and Bolongaro
Trevor. When she returned to
Christchurch in 2008, she resumed
her clothing and accessories line and
found success.
Kathryn was chosen to show
at New Zealand Fashion Week
2010, but didn’t quite have a
fairytale journey to the catwalk. The
September 4, 2010 earthquake hit
and her Cathedral Square workroom
was “trashed”. Her garments,
fortunately, were not damaged and
she was still able to make it to the
catwalk on time.
But afterwards, Kathryn felt it
was time to change gears and
concentrate on small goods like
accessories and homewares.
“The fashion world in New
Zealand is quite a competitive
environment and you need to invest
a lot of money upfront to really get
your brand out there,” she says. “I
was just a one-woman band.”
And one thing Kathryn refuses to
compromise on is quality.
“I only use good quality materials
and hardware because longevity
is really important to me. I source
the very best raw materials and
my pieces ended up being quite
expensive by the time they reached
the customer, especially if I sold
through a shop,” she says.
Enter the MoWoof Collar Co
and a dog called Bo. When Kathryn
got Bo, she was more than a little
perturbed at the lack of quality dog
collars on the market.
“They were made with really
cheap leather that has a fake coating
that cracks and peels, and hardware
rusts. I could see straight away, what
was available was just not going to
cut it.
“I set myself on a path of learning
saddlery techniques and sourcing
saddlery leathers to make the best
quality dog collars,” she says.
And happy dogs are apparently
the best marketing tool. Soon her
friends wanted designer dog collars
and word of mouth quickly spread
and continues to do so today.
She works closely with her
clientele, suggesting items that would
go well with the colour of their dog’s
fur and selects from the leather hide
the perfect piece to make the collar.
It has been an interesting journey,
Kathryn says.
“Sometimes you end up on
the path you weren’t necessarily
intending to end up on, but things
work out that way,” she says.
“You can’t just stop at the first ‘no’
you get. You have to really believe in
your product and push through until
you find the people who get what
you are doing. That gives you more
and more confidence.”
And that path for Kathryn right
now, has her happily working away
on the top storey of her mum’s
house, creating beautiful designer
leather collars for our furry friends.