Upscale trackpants key to business’ success
After nine years of hard graft it was putting a simple X on a pair of comfortable black track pants that sent designer Anna Shone’s clothing business home-lee rocketing.
On the back of strong marketing, including on social media, home-lee now has orders rolling in online and is stocked in more than 70 stores nationwide.
The grand opening of home-lee’s new shop in Richmond, near Nelson, on April 6 saw more than 400 people turn up with queues down the road.
‘‘It was so overwhelming and I continue to be floored by how busy the shop is.’’
Shone left school to pursue her passion for design studying fashion design.
After travelling the world she settled back in Nelson with her husband Patrick and in between having three daughters she created her first clothing brand Charislee.
Shone ran a stall every Saturday at the Nelson Market, she also set up pop-up stores and travelled to markets in Wellington and Christchurch.
She describes the nine years at markets as ‘‘really tough’’, and credits her husband for getting the family through these years.
‘‘He paid the bills, kept food on the table and looked after the kids while I went to all these markets, which made us next to no money.’’
She was eventually inspired to design a new line, including homewares, creating an offshoot to Charislee called home-lee. The line included sleepwear and her signature best-selling apartment pants; a style she describes as an upscale trackpant with a drop crotch.
‘‘They’re practical, stylish and trendy.’’
Shone soon realised that while the homewares did okay it was the apartment pants that everyone wanted.
‘‘It just snowballed and I couldn’t keep up. My friend and I were sewing hundreds and hundreds of pairs of pants, it was just crazy’’
In 2015 Shone decided to get her clothing made offshore to meet demand. She travelled to China and meet with a factory agent.
The factory provided samples which she liked and Shone returned to China to meet the factory owners. She was happy to discover the factory in Guangzhou, Southern China was small and family run.
With the addition of t-shirts, jackets, hoodies, and dresses to their range, home-lee is now the factory’s biggest customer.
With such rapid growth amid the constraints of working from home, and running a small warehouse and storage containers in separate locations, Shone dreamed of consolidating her business.
The former Richmond Glass building in Gladstone Rd proved the perfect site and had the added bonus of having space for a shop.
Shone said she designed her clothes keeping quality, comfort and casualness in mind.
She caters for sizes 6-16, with her sizing ‘‘true to the average Kiwi woman,’’ she said.
‘‘Comfort appeals to everybody, you want to be comfortable but know you can pop down to the shops,’’ Shone said.
The spacious office Shone now works from is a far cry from the market stall she ran for years. She won’t spend this winter with a hot water bottle down her jacket, nor will she miss holding down her gazebo with every gust of wind.
The hard work has paid off; ‘‘I love my job. It’s absolutely my dream and I feel very privileged that I get to live my dream. I have an amazing family and husband who have backed me all the way.’’
She hasn’t finished dreaming though and has plenty of new ideas and plans to expand, hoping to see home-lee reach Australian stores in the near future.