The former magazine publisher is steering her mother’s legacy by adapting to the times.
Fashion label Paula Ryan is set to cease its wholesale operations licensing agreement and close its only brick-and-mortar store In NorthWest, Westgate, Auckland as the start of a new business strategy to scale back its physical
The brand will focus on ending its seasonal fashion collections and concentrate solely on its collection of wardrobe essentials. There will be no seasonal fashion collection produced for next summer, but instead an emphasis on the Paula Ryan Essentials collection, which has been in production for 25 years.
The announcement was confirmed in a statement by Ryan (NZOM) herself on the brand’s social media over Matariki weekend, and by her daughter Bridget Hope, who manages the brand’s e-commerce business alongside her label Magpie Style and Magpie Home.
The Paula Ryan label is currently sold in 25 stores throughout New Zealand and 24 in Australia. These accounts will close by the end of the year.
In May, one of the brand’s key retailers Smith & Caughey’s announced it would close its iconic Queen St department store in early 2025, which Hope says was one catalyst for the shift in priority for the label to transition to an online-only model.
This morning the New Zealand Herald reported the brand’s sole manufacturer has also called in Rodgers Reidy liquidators, with an initial report estimating a shortfall to secured, unsecured and preferential creditors of $1.01 million.
“Covid of course was hard for a lot of retailers, especially wholesale,” Hope tells Viva over the phone from her base in Rangiora, Canterbury. “The economic climate has seen a wholesale decline over the last year. From my own experience, fashion retailers are 30% down as interest rates have risen. For the Paula Ryan online business, we have managed to successfully hold the sales revenue this year. We’re currently working through our current stock and selling through this to prepare for our ideal model, which is to sell only 20 styles of garments in a range of considered colours,” says Hope. “That’s the plan for the next six months.”
Known as one of New Zealand’s leading fashion figures, Paula Ryan has contributed much to our local fashion canon. The semi-retired 76-year-old’s career has spanned everything from graphic design and modelling to founding one of the country’s first fashion magazine’s Fashion Quarterly in 1982 alongside then-husband Don Hope. Not long after she finished at Fashion Quarterly in 1996, Ryan launched another glossy newsstand magazine, Simply You, the biannual style bible defined by Ryan’s distinctive voice, which ended its circulation in 2020 as part of publisher Bauer Media’s New Zealand closure.
Ryan started her fashion business in 1998 from five simple tops after being approached by the marketing body of Merino New Zealand, and it grew into a fully-fledged lifestyle brand with four large seasonal collections a year, a collection of bags, belts and shoes and a dedicated travel collection. Over the years the brand has dressed several well-known New Zealander’s including 90s supermodel Kylie Bax, who has appeared in several of the brand’s advertising campaigns over the years.
“We have been noticing a definite decrease in the ‘wear-it-once’ mentality from women in New Zealand,” Hope says.
“Women want to know that whatever fashion item they’re investing in now, they can get more wear out of and it can last the distance. There used to be a mentality that you have different pieces for different occasions from racewear to black-tie functions, a real wear-once mentality. This was when there was a lot more disposable income, which has done a 180-degree turn in the last year. Our customers are becoming more socially conscious too.”
By focusing on crease-resistant and stretchy fabrics like micro jersey, Ryan’s designs have a distinctive, minimalism that has steered the businesses reputation as a leading maker of well-made wardrobe basics that can be worn and styled in various different ways. Hope says the business will continue to be in demand for its ability to deliver reliable wardrobe essentials.
“We had a marketing activation recently where we sold 30 of one of our popular trouser styles in two days — at $395 per trouser. People come to us also knowing our fabrics will support them with a variety of dress codes. We’ll also continue to deliver our popular range of belts. Paula would always say ‘Never throw your belts out’. They provide women with the option to transform a simple garment into something else. Right now with our essentials range, our focus is to ensure that we deliver more stock to cater to that demand which will grow once we get away from that seasonal fashion model.”
As the daughter of one of the country’s leading fashion figures, Hope has also carved out her own lane in fashion having worked as a publishing director in Singapore, leading international magazines including Harper’s Bazaar and Cosmopolitan, and running her own fashion and homewares business Magpie Style, which she plans to continue doing alongside managing the transition of the Paula Ryan brand to online only. Working on the online business alongside her mother for the past seven years has allowed her to help keep the brand’s legacy alive, a factor that has plays a pivotal part in the brand being able to continue in a volatile retail environment.
“Brands become much too big to sell or pass on and become a big machine that requires constant nurturing and capital,” says Hope. “By scaling back our manufacturing licensing for wholesale, we can continue to deliver great garments to our customers who have relied on Paula’s designs for many years.”
Dan Ahwa is Viva’s fashion and creative director and a senior premium lifestyle journalist for the New Zealand Herald, specialising in fashion, luxury, arts and culture. He is also an award-winning stylist with more than 17 years of experience, and is a co-author and co-curator of The New Zealand Fashion Museum’s Moana Currents: Dressing Aotearoa Now.
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