Who is KIVARI? The Australian label built by the water

Ask an Australian where she bought the linen dress she wore to a beach wedding and there is a fair chance the answer is KIVARI. The label has fifteen boutiques along the east coast and beyond, from Noosa Heads down to Chadstone in Melbourne, and a devoted following that buys the same tank in three colours. Outside Australia it is less known, which is exactly why Luxury Handbags stocks it. This is the short version of who KIVARI is and what to buy.

The founder and the name

Kirstin Keysers founded KIVARI in 2014. Everyone calls her Kiki, and the name of the label is hers: KI for Kiki, VARI meaning by the water. The brand tells its own story in those terms, a designer who travelled a great deal and kept coming back to the sea. The boutiques follow the same map, Byron Bay, Burleigh Heads, Bondi Beach, Freshwater, Noosa Heads, with city stores in Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne. The label is designed in Sydney.

What KIVARI makes

Ready-to-wear for warm weather, most of it in natural fibres. The current range at Luxury Handbags runs to 138 styles, and the split tells you what the brand is for: 39 tops, 35 dresses, 22 pants, 11 pieces of knitwear, 9 shorts, a few skirts, jackets and a jumpsuit. Compositions are printed on every piece. Linen and cotton do the heavy lifting, ramie appears on the dressier maxis, lyocell and viscose on the fluid Jaxon line, and the lace pieces are nylon lace over a lined body.

The range is organised as families rather than one-offs. Jaxon is a cloth and a mood, sold as a lace shirt, a lace pant, a halter, a jumpsuit and a plain shirt and pant in plum, chocolate and dark green. Saro is the brick-red linen story: a maxi dress, a midi, a mini, a cami and a maxi skirt. Tallulah is the tank, ribbed cotton with a crochet edge, in a scoop, a V neck, a one-shoulder and a spliced two-tone. Buying inside a family is the trick: a Jaxon shirt over a Jaxon pant reads as a suit, a Tallulah under a Saro skirt reads as an outfit.

How it fits

KIVARI cuts to Australian sizing, 4 to 18, which is the same as UK sizing. US customers go four numbers down, so an AU 8 is a US 4. The studio model is 178 cm and wears an 8. The brand states “fits true to size” on almost everything and says so when it does not: it asks you to size down on the relaxed Delany Blazer and up on the Delfie Maxi Dress. Our KIVARI size guide has the full chart.

What it costs

At Luxury Shoes , KIVARI runs from $250 for the Tallulah Scoop Tank to $770 for a lined lace maxi dress. Most dresses sit between $500 and $650, shirts and pants between $380 and $500. That places it under Zimmermann and alongside Aje and Sir the Label, the other Australian labels a KIVARI customer tends to cross-shop. We compare them in brands like KIVARI.

Where to start

A maxi dress, because the label draws its long silhouettes better than anyone at this price. The Marit Maxi Dress in Cream Tan is the quiet one, the Saro in brick the loud one. Add a Hanna Jean for the flight home and you have most of a holiday wardrobe. The full edit is on the KIVARI brand page, and the dresses and tops categories hold the rest of the season.