A devastating injury changed Marc Moore’s life. Amy Parsons-King meets the man behind fashion label Stolen Girlfriends Club on his recent visit to Dunedin.
Sometimes adversity is the catalyst for change and that's exactly how Marc Moore, the creator of label Stolen Girlfriends Club, went from surfer to designer.
Moore was born in Auckland and lived there until he was 8, before relocating with his mother to Raglan, where he discovered his passion for surfing.
''Apparently my teacher or principal said to my mum, 'I'm really worried about Marc. I don't know if he's happy here', and mum was like 'let's move to Raglan', and it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me because I found surfing,'' Moore said.
Moore enjoyed a happy seaside childhood, not leaving the coast until he was 25, when he moved to Hamilton to work for a surfwear company, doing sales and marketing.
The business was eventually sold and relocated to Auckland, which saw him relocate with the business, a move he says terrified him.
''When the business was sold, the owners said I was part of the deal: 'Take the business and take this guy.' I didn't want to go. I was so scared. It was a big city with traffic lights. We didn't even have a roundabout in Raglan.''
Moore continued to surf and work with the surfwear company until he sustained a back industry, which changed the entire course of his life.
''All I'd ever wanted to be is a pro-surfer, although there was a time I looked at the older surfers who had been pro-surfers around me and saw they were driving s...box cars and renting houses and I thought maybe this isn't for me and that I should look at other career options, although fashion was never on the radar.
''The injury devastated me but my mum was optimistic about the situation and suggested I pick up my paintbrushes and start painting again. I'd always been creative and it was that push from her that motivated me to paint a collection of works and have an exhibition.''
Moore did hold an exhibition, titled ''Stolen Girlfriends Club'', a name inspired by his then relationship situation.
''I was seeing this girl and her ex-boyfriend was a bit of a doosh-bag and I had this idea about this group of guys that would go around stealing girls away from these s... relationships and that's how the concept came about.''
Moore teamed up with Oyster magazine, which had sponsored the event, to hold a one-night exhibition in which he showcased 12 acrylic on canvas works.
The show was a huge success, with him selling 10 works. Everyone was enthralled with the concept of ''Stolen Girlfriends Club'', he said.
The show coincided with Moore and his friends and now business partners Dan Gosling and Luke Harwood considering the idea of starting a business, creating clothing they couldn't find in the market.
''Back then we were really into slogan T-shirts but we couldn't find them in the vintage stores; they were always sold out. So we made a range of tees saying 'Stolen Girlfriends Club Says Relax', a tribute to the film Frankie Says Relax, he said.
''We just fluked it. It was the right time - everyone wanted slogan T-shirts.''
The crisp white T-shirts with bold black print proved to be a hit, with magazines soon knocking at their door to feature them on their pages.
This led to orders being placed and the trio soon found they had inadvertently started a business, which they officially registered in 2005.
Stolen Girlfriends Club soon got into production, creating four T-shirts, two pairs of jeans and three pieces of jewellery, supplying just a handful of stores.
One store to get on board early on was Dunedin's Slick Willys, which Moore says has been extremely supportive of the brand.
From there the business rapidly grew and in 2007 it was invited to show at New Zealand Fashion Week. This was the catalyst to creating its first womenswear collection.
''We were like, oh my God, we've gotta show. If someone invites you, you don't have to go, but we were like, we've gotta do it and we've got to show more than four slogan tees and a few pairs of jeans.''
The three friends did not have the money to fund the show, but Gosling knew the marketing manager at Mini and knew it was looking to align itself with a fashion brand, so he reached out and the label and car brand have had a long-standing relationship ever since.
Showing at Fashion Week firmly put Stolen Girlfriends Club on the map and the brand has continued to progress, at present stocking 30 stores with clothing and 50 with jewellery Australasia-wide.
Stolen Girlfriends Club is renowned for its unconventional runway shows, often held in unexpected locations such as car parks and supermarkets or with models busting out of portable toilets.
Recently, Dunedin hosted the first such show the label has done outside Auckland or Australia as it launched its ''Be my Turpentine'' high summer collection.
The models strode down a U-shaped runway in the Underground Market in George St, a vacant retail space with exposed concrete floors and partially painted walls.
About 300 invitation-only guests piled into the space to watch local models, both signed and unsigned, stride down the runway wearing fishnet stockings, thigh-high chaps, frayed and torn denim, hoodies, mom jeans, micro-shorts, tie-dyed dresses and slogans like ''Broke but not broken'' and ''Been down so long looks like up to me'' emblazoned on leather jackets, all topped off with yellow-lens aviators, reminiscent of the 1970s.
Moore said the collection was based on his love of contrasting themes with a ''Morticia at the beach'' vibe thrown in.
''The collection is about optimism and pessimism. The slogans like 'Broke but not broken' are quite dark and negative but the white denim and jersey are more optimistic.''
Moore thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity of showcasing his collection to a Dunedin audience and is hoping to be back in the near future.
Dunedin car dealership Cooke Howlison, which has aligned itself with fashion labels in the past and is a stockist of Mini, approached the label and car brand about collaborating on a Dunedin show.
''Seeing the projects Mini and Stolen have created together in the past and the way the brands align, we were extremely excited about bringing something of that nature to our customers and the people of Dunedin,'' Cooke Howlison's marketing manager, Chelsea Cain, said.