inside the store, all concrete and fancyLast Fri­day we had a lovely time at the open­ing of St Fabiola on Lom­bard Street (you may have seen us tweet­ing about the pies from Pickle and Pie, because, you know, pri­or­it­ies), so this week, we caught up with the own­er Kirsten for a chat over email.

What’s your back­ground before the shop?

I’m an Embroid­ery Artist work­ing in digit­al embroid­ery. Recently I’ve been mak­ing embroidered art­works and cos­tumes for film and work­ing part-time teach­ing at Mas­sey.  My first real job was work­ing for an Art Deal­er (Mar­shall Seifert) , I worked in Har­rods and Har­vey Nich­olls in Lon­don and part-owned a snow­board shop in Queen­stown. This is a cul­min­a­tion of my love of art and retail. My chil­dren are grow­ing up and I needed anoth­er out­let for my work and a new chal­lenge so St Fabiola the boutique was cre­ated.

Where does the name St Fabiola come from?

While study­ing saints and reli­gious embroid­ery for my Mas­ters degree, I dis­covered the St Fabiola exhib­i­tion by Fran­cis Alys. I loved her name and her strik­ing image. St Fabiola is the Pat­ron Saint of divorced people and I have recently been on that jour­ney. I’m remar­ried now though to Bruce Turn­er.

Pick five words to describe the shop

Exper­i­en­tial, inspir­a­tion­al, beau­ti­ful, relax­ing, friendly.

How do you choose what to stock?another image inside the store

St Fabiola is also the pro­duc­tion com­pany for fash­ion label Hail­wood so we stock the full Hail­wood range designed by my friend Adri­an Hail­wood. It is a fun-lov­ing, age­less, and well-priced brand that hasn’t been avail­able in full in Wel­ling­ton before. I’m also rep­res­ent­ing Fiona Pard­ing­ton in con­junc­tion with Stark­white gal­lery and St Fabiola embroid­er­ies. There is also beau­ti­ful jew­ellery and shoes by Revie. When choos­ing stock I’m think­ing of fun, soph­ist­ic­ated Wel­ling­ton women.

What do you have planned for the next year or so of the shop?

I’m so excited about the next year. We have anoth­er Pard­ing­ton exi­hib­i­tion open­ing in Septem­ber. We will be hold­ing spe­cial St Fabiola after hours classes and such as Ikebana, beer and cheese tast­ing and Tar­ot for begin­ners. I’m plan­ning on stock­ing a selec­tion of books, more beauty and plants espe­cially rare orch­ids.

Finally, what’s anoth­er retail place in Wel­ling­ton that you love?

I love Caugh­ley.