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Fashion

There are challenges to the fashion industry in the region, such as competition from chain stores who can import clothing at low cost. This means designers will usually approach boutique or specialist stores. Within the region manufacturing businesses are more common than those focussing on the design of clothes. The established operations in the region tend to focus on both of these activities.

Scintilla formerly Urchin Original Clothing is located in Raglan and manufactures all of the clothing on two separate sites located in the region. All the clothing is designed in-house and sold through the retail store. Raglan has situated itself as a tourist destination so the store capitalises on that as a point of difference.
Madam Muck is a relatively new outlet but it is interesting in that it has tried to actively seek out young designers from the region in particular Hamilton. In doing so it currently has 4 designers who create original fashion as well as 7 designers who come from through out New Zealand. Also quite important is the move by management to gather talent from within the region.

Creating opportunities for design in the region is not simple, because of a number of challenges. Initiatives by stores like Madam Muck for example are hampered by several factors the first is competition from other stores. To negate this stores like Madam Muck try to create a point of difference in this case hiring local talent to create designs. There are no formal links for designers in the region, no office or point of contact so informal links then have to be created between retailers and designers. This problem in itself leads to others, because there are no formal or established contact points in the area talent that already exists in the region tends to leave and work in other large centres such as Auckland or Wellington. This departure is not because the Waikato region is a market which has no potential, but rather because there is no infrastructure to foster this potential.

Unofficially there are a few original clothing designers who do not advertise and sell their products privately or at public spaces such as a market. It is difficult to measure exactly how many of these designers there are and if in fact the clothes they are selling are original. Also whilst manufacture is important to the area in that it can provide a number of jobs, it is also susceptible to offshoring and is lower in the value chain.

Bullseye Rubber Products Ltd
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Fabia Ltd
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Najie Clothing Co Ltd
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SOUL design
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Soul Shoes
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Trio Sportswear
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Betacraft N Z Ltd

Bonton Industrial

Cirtex Industries

Custom Design Footwear

Davis Imports Ltd

Dollybird

Dorset Tailoring

Heskett J & E Ltd

Kerr Industries Ltd

Madam Muck

McDonald Textiles

Pragma Fashion Ltd & Factory Shop

Raewyn Penrose Originals

Solo Fashions Ltd

Teamwork

Urchin Original Clothing/Scintilla

Westside

Z-Bar Product 2004 Ltd


	Commissioned by Wintec Creative Industries Research Centre To correct or add information to this page, please contact creativeindustries@wintec.ac.nz