Fashionista battles back from kidnap

After a turbulent few years, fashion designer Kharl WiRepa tells Benn Bathgate he is cleaned up and catwalk ready.

‘‘On the day of the kidnapping, that was the last of the money.’’ Kharl WiRepa

Kidnapped, beaten, tied to a chair with an electric cable and a steak knife plunged into his thigh.

This wasn’t how 2018 was meant to be shaping up for Kharl WiRepa, who less than a year earlier had become the first Ma¯ ori designer to see their work in the pages of the influential fashion bible British Vogue.

Ahead of the Gowns and Geysers TV show that goes behind the scenes of the tantrums, tears and tiaras of the Miss Rotorua pageant he revived in 2018, and his return to the New Zealand Fashion Week catwalk, WiRepa sat down with the Sunday Star-Times to discuss a roller-coaster few years.

It’s a conversation that spans fashion, faith, Princess Diana, $1000 methamphetamine binges, catwalks and courtrooms – once as victim, once as defendant.

In a curious twist ahead of his NZ Fashion Week show on February 8, it’s that show, back in 2017, that WiRepa believes put him on the Vogue radar – not that he believed it at the time.

When the call came from Vogue publisher Conde´ Nast, ‘‘I thought OK, this is a telemarketing scheme, or it’s going to result in a ‘Nigerian Prince’ asking me for a credit card number.’’

He ‘‘played along’’, and emailed photos of his designs, then forgot about it. Four months later they emailed again.

WiRepa admits he still thought the Nigerian Prince was at the other end, but that changed when a magazine package arrived a few months later. ‘‘I scrolled through the pages and saw the dress. That’s when, for me, it became very real.’’

The accomplishment, however, was clouded by other events , including a slew of fraud charges. ‘‘We were fighting for name suppression and that was the only thing rolling through my mind at the time.’’

WiRepa lost that battle, and was convicted of 14 charges of benefit fraud totalling $11,844.16, and ordered to repay that cash back.

The charges stemmed from his time studying fashion at the Waiariki Institute, now Toi Ohomai. They included making false documents omitting to disclose living arrangements, which allowed WiRepa to claim much more in student living allowances

than he was entitled.

He accepted he had made a mistake, and was sanguine about the publicity he knew would inevitably follow after Judge Marie McKenzie declined name suppression saying, ‘‘It’s not my role to hide this fraud from national and international fashion communities.’’

WiRepa is candid about the stress. He describes how a fashion world awash with drugs and alcohol set the wheels in motion for his next brush with the courts – as a victim.

‘‘Back then, for me to go to the races and snort a line of cocaine in the bathroom, to go out on a Saturday night and smoke $1000 worth of methamphetamine, it wasn’t unusual.’’

He says publicity caused a loss of credibility, sponsors and sales. ‘‘I did get back into alcohol and hanging around with the darker side of my associates.’’

In 2018 a woman pleaded guilty to unlawfully detaining WiRepa, and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

She emerged from beneath the covers of a bed at a house WiRepa had been invited into, holding a 15cm-long steak knife, and demanded drugs and cash, telling WiRepa: ‘‘I will cut your eyes out, and I can have you killed.’’

WiRepa was tied to a chair, assaulted and stabbed.

The woman and her associates took the methamphetamine he had on him, and his cash and jewellery, only leaving after he agreed to draw a map guiding them to a ‘‘drug house’’.

WiRepa agrees it was rock bottom. ‘‘At this point, there’s no more money, I’d been kidnapped. On the day of the kidnapping, that was the last of the money. The drugs, jewellery; they’d taken everything.’’

The experience left WiRepa with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and he’s undergone

counselling, but it also gave him the spark to turn things around.

‘‘One thing I always had is my talent, so I always knew I could bounce back. Sobriety was one thing I needed, but I needed to surround myself with better people.’’

He says his Mormon faith also helped. ‘‘I want back to the church and all those things my family is built on... to rebuild myself spiritually, mentally and physically.

‘‘Leaving the church was the biggest mistake I made.

‘‘Lifted up with pride, you become disconnected. Sometimes the Lord gives us a lesson in life where he takes things away so you can learn again. The whole thing has been a spiritual experience, even the kidnapping.

‘‘I wouldn’t change it. I am in a better position now.’’

Now, sipping on a green tea, WiRepa is healthier and fitter than ever, and excited for the release of Gowns and Geysers on TVNZ On Demand on January 22, and is eyeing up Mt Maunganui and Taupo¯ versions of the show.

‘‘Into every town and iwi, until I rule the nation,’’ he jokes.

He’s proud the pageants have raised more than $150,000 for 30 charities, and of the diversity and inclusiveness they promote – these aren’t your old-school, bikiniparade events. ‘‘Former prostitutes, P addicts, spina bifida sufferers, Chinese contestants, Indian contestants.’’

He tells the pageant contenders about one of his icons too, Princess Diana.

‘‘I grew up in a world where Princess Diana was the ultimate fashion icon and the ultimate way to be as a person,’’ he says, citing her charity work. ‘‘The pageants are a way for us to create a world of Princess Dianas.’’

Then there’s the return to New Zealand Fashion Week.

WiRepa’s spent the past three months working on his collection of 65 different looks, and he’s promising an antidote to the dark, grungy and sexualised shows that sometimes grace the catwalks.

‘‘I want the audience to feel like they’re in heaven,’’ he says.

‘‘This is the collection for what goddesses wear.’’

*