The day I took the call from the Royal New Zealand Ballet asking me to design for them signified a milestone in my career.

Like many little girls, I took ballet lessons and dreamed of becoming a dancer. I honestly believed I was going to go to Britain and train at the Royal Academy!

Well, as you can imagine this never happened, but much to my delight, I have been able to revisit my childhood dream of being involved in the glamorous world of ballet.

So, when last year the Royal New Zealand Ballet invited me to design a range of fashion accessories, I really had to pinch myself! The brief was to create accessories that would appeal to all supporters of the ballet – this would include budding ballerinas through to the more traditional audiences who regularly attend performances.

I was so excited going to the first meeting in Wellington. The ballet is housed in the historic St James Theatre and when I walked through the doors, I entered a different world. I found myself watching the company dancers rehearsing, and I wafted through the wardrobe department where tutus, tiaras and pointe shoes lined the walls. I was in paradise!

On my return home to Arrowtown, the image that the ballet epitomises stayed with me, I wanted to present the range as all that is graceful and feminine and these traits have been an intrinsic inspiration in my product design. As I use sumptuous velvets and luxurious silk in my product ranges, the pretty hand embroidered and hand beaded ballet slipper design were a perfect fit being both elegant yet fun.

The relationship between the staff at the Royal New Zealand Ballet and my team, has been a most enjoyable and seamless collaboration of people passionate about creating timeless beauty for people to enjoy and remember.

This is the first of what I hope will be many collections I design for the Royal New Zealand Ballet. There are plans afoot to extend the range further, later in the year, so this is just our opening act!

Tamsin Cooper is now a proud sponsor of the Royal New Zealand Ballet through this project. Every product purchased helps support the Royal New Zealand Ballet,

The range will be available at the theatres where the RNZB will be performing, on-line via the RNZB website, Tamsin Cooper's on-line store and from selected retailers throughout New Zealand.