Fashion whizz Carena West sure knows how to rock a frock, hat and heels. The former Treasure Island: Pirates Of The Pacific star has won numerous style competitions, including the Melbourne Cup’s top prize when she was five months pregnant!
This year, Carena, 37, entered Wellington’s World of Wearable Art contest for the first time and won two awards for her entry, Tears Unseen, which she made from plastic factory offcuts she welded together.
It was this grit-meets-glamour approach that served Carena well on Treasure Island in Fiji back in 2007. “It was awesome – really fun,” she recalls. “I did it when I was 19, so I didn’t really take it too seriously. A lot of the girls snuck in makeup!
“We had to build a raft to take someone through an obstacle course. Everyone was building intricate rafts and I said, ‘Just tie the poles together and I’ll hang on to it like a monkey.’ I hung on like a pig on a spit and we won!”
Her teammate Hayley Holt went on to win the show. “Hayley was awesome,” remembers Carena.
Working together on their activewear has paid off.
These days, the fashion designer’s teammate is her younger sister Bex, 32. When Carena asked Bex to join her making compression tights in 2017, her sibling jumped at the chance and the sisters’ popular activewear label Clique Fitness has gone from strength to strength. They recently sold a 53% stake in the company to global fashion firm Barkers Max.
The sisters are best friends, but with a five-year age gap, it hasn’t always been this way. When Carena was 19, her parents moved to Bahrain with Bex, who was 14. Carena stayed in Auckland to study fashion and business at AUT.
Their parents, Mike, now 60, and Dawn, 61, were in the air force, so the family was used to moving around, but as a young teen, Bex struggled in the Middle East. It was the start of her crippling anxiety, but at the time, she didn’t have a name for how she felt.
“I was feeling scared and stressed about everything,” Bex recalls. After five years of living apart, Carena moved to Bahrain for a few months to work as a marketing intern for Porsche. The siblings formed a close bond that’s been unbreakable ever since.
“We got to know each other as friends, rather than someone you have to be nice to,” laughs Carena.
Carena (left) and Bex were separated for many years.
Bex adds, “Even though we grew up separately, we were a family again. When I came back to New Zealand, I moved in with Carena.”
However, Bex’s mental health reached a low point when she went to university to study product design.
“Because I’d been gone for so long, I didn’t really know many people and I didn’t have the safe space I needed,” tells Bex.
“Carena provided that for me and she helped me through those times.
“I was put on some pretty heavy anxiety medication and I’m so thankful I could take it. Then I moved to Wellington for a job, and my anxiety and stress got pretty horrific.”
In Wellington, Bex met her partner of six years, entrepreneur Logan Tyson, 34, at a marketing conference. She credits him with helping support her mental health, but it was working with her sister in their own business that’s made the biggest impact.
“My medication was for when I felt like I was about to have a panic attack, which ended up being a couple of times a week. They were pretty horrible. I just couldn’t turn my thoughts off.
“But then those feelings stopped happening and I haven’t had to take medication for a long time.”
The sisters celebrate winning a Westpac Business Award.
Now if Bex feels vulnerable, she texts Carena for support.
“When she first told me she had anxiety, I didn’t really understand it,” admits Carena.
“I hadn’t had any struggles with my mental health and I hadn’t quite grasped the gravity of it. I did my best to support her as much as I could.
“But then when I had my daughter, I had some quite bad hormonal anxiety. I couldn’t organise my thoughts to leave the house. I actually called Bex and said, ‘Oh, my God, I finally understand what it’s like’. It wasn’t panic-attack level, but it was something I’d not experienced before.”
Carena married Four Square owner Rob Worker, 40, in 2019 and the couple’s daughter Emily was born just before lockdown in 2020. Luckily, Carena’s hormones settled after a few months. Bex was there to support her too.
“It was nice to be able to give back to Carena for all the help she’s given me,” says Bex. “We now support each other.”
Carena adds, “I think Bex is very good at staying grounded. She’s very good at encouraging me to take better care of myself, so it’s almost like a bit of a role reversal now.
“She’s encouraged me to open up a lot more. In the past, I’ve always kept things to myself. It’s awesome that we work really well together. With Clique, we’ve managed to create a community that people love. We love what we do and we love helping people feel better.”
If you’re struggling with your mental health, call or text 1737 for free any time.
