Laurie Foon

INFO

Name	Laurie Foon (she/her)
Born	1965
Country of Birth	Aotearoa
Place of Residence	Pōneke Wellington
Ethnicities	Chinese (Cantonese), Pākehā
Artform	Design, Fashion
Decades Active	1990s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s

ABOUT

In 1993, fashion designer Laurie Foon founded Starfish, which was among the first eco-conscious labels in Aotearoa New Zealand. Clean lines, palettes of rich colour, distinctive prints and natural fibres became the label’s calling card, with the garments designed to be wearable and “travel the distance of a day”. After Starfish’s closure in 2013, Foon continued to champion environmental sustainability and is currently a City Councillor and the Deputy Mayor of Wellington.

Foon grew up in Wainuiomata before moving to Pōneke Wellington, where she began working in the garment industry — starting at Zimme's, a cut, make and trim shop on Willis Street that produced women’s suits and coats. After an OE in London, Foon returned to Pōneke, where she sold “retrofitted second-hand clothes” at the Wakefield Market under the label Jive Junkies. Two years later, in 1993, she opened her first shop, launching the fashion label Starfish. Foon grew Starfish into a national brand, with retail stores in Pōneke, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and Ōtautahi Christchurch as well as wholesale business throughout Aotearoa and Australia. At its peak, the business directly employed up to 25 staff and Starfish produced over 40 collections.

Foon saw fashion as a way to tell stories, and historian Kerryn Pollock describes how Starfish “Collections were often inspired by social and cultural issues”, such as strong local opposition to a proposed inner-city bypass road in Wellington. Other collections were also inspired by local and personal stories. The Summer 2008/2009 collection, The Garden of Perfect Happiness, was anchored by the experiences of Foon’s great-grandfather, and she wrote in the collection materials:

William Yan-Foon came to New Zealand from China as a young man and worked all his life in market gardens. He was an orphan and rare for his time - he married an English woman. I often wonder what it would have been like for him to be in a new country with a culture so different from his own, unable to speak the language. My great auntie tells of seeing my great grandfather as she used to wheel her pram, always in his vegetable garden in Petone. I guess that the garden for him would have been his Garden of Perfect Happiness.

In 2017–18, the Petone Settlers Museum displayed materials about William Yan-Foon, alongside one of the dresses from the collection, celebrating Foon's “entrepreneurship and love of the environment” as qualities she shares with her great-grandfather and recognising her as an “inspirational eco-creative”.

Starfish is recognised as a pioneering business in Aotearoa for the way it centred environmentally conscious practices. It gravitated in this direction in response to the environmental impacts Foon observed within the garment industry. She has said that she was always wondering about how to help “customers to understand what this garment costs in environmental terms”. Foon anticipated the conversations around overconsumption and fast fashion that continue to challenge the garment industry, saying in 2011, “We need to push beyond throwaway fashion and consider more deeply about how clothes are being made. The future of fashion has to be stylish clothes produced in a sustainable, ethical and enduring way”.

All of the clothing was designed and made in Aotearoa and featured labels communicating the “eco-qualities” of each garment, such as natural fibres, recycled trims and eco-friendly dyes. When Starfish opened New Zealand Fashion Week in 2010, Fashion NZ described the way that:

Every garment showcased on the runway has been produced in an eco-friendly manner. The collection features eco-conscious fabrics, New Zealand sourcing where possible, natural treatment processes for textiles, and re- and up-cycled materials. In addition, every garment was made locally in New Zealand.

Starfish closed in 2013 when the company went into liquidation. Foon pointed to increasingly difficult economic conditions for locally-made fashion, saying, “I’m seeing that the current boutique model we have is not sustainable.” Local manufacturing had begun to shrink as production moved to countries like China. The company had also been hit hard by the loss of the Ōtautahi store, which was badly damaged in the 2011 earthquake. After the label closed, Te Papa acquired over 400 objects from Starfish for the museum’s archives and collections. This includes garments, design workbooks, promotional materials, manuals from the retail stores, photographs and clips from television appearances.

After the closure of Starfish, Foon worked for the Sustainable Businesses Network. Through her work as the Network’s manager, she was encouraged to stand for election as a city councillor, seeing the potential to influence sustainability policy at a city-wide level. She was elected in 2019 and re-elected in 2022 when she was also appointed as the city’s Deputy Mayor. She champions many of the city’s sustainability initiatives, including waste management and food system planning. She has a passion for community gardens and urban growing initiatives, inspired by her family’s own connection to market gardening and growing vegetables.

Between 2013 and 2021, Foon also hosted and produced a show on Wellington Access Radio called B-side stories. She profiled members of the Wellington community, celebrating “the unsung heroes, rebels and enthusiasts who shape the fabric and flavour of Wellington.”