A close-knit family's success with high country yarns

THE EXCITEMENT OF OPENING A NEW RETAIL STORE IN CHRISTCHURCH VANISHED IN AN INSTANT AS THE LOCKDOWN WAS IMPOSED

“NOT AWESOME,” SAYS Christina Perriam, with more than a touch of southern understatement, about how she and her husband Callum Grant felt as they closed the doors of their four-day-old Christchurch retail shop, Perriam, and sent their newly trained staff home indefinitely.

It had been a big project to launch a third brick-and-mortar retail outlet, which added to two others - the original Perriam store in Tarras, north of Cromwell, and the more recent premises on Wānaka’s main shopping street. As they headed home themselves, the long drive back to Wānaka gave them plenty of time to ponder the future of their business and the economy overall. It didn’t feel like such a great time to be exposed to the new lease on that now shut-up store with no guarantee of when the doors might open, allowing customers to return.

But life can throw curve balls, and this entrepreneurial couple was open to ideas and receptive to anything coming their way. Along with many other New Zealanders in the same boat, they hunkered down and focused on steering their label of 100 per cent New Zealandmade women’s knitwear and fashion, babywear and products made from merino wool through the days ahead. The distractions of their 11-month-old son Walter helped, even if that often meant toddler destruction while parental eyes were distracted by computer screens.

Callum, born-and-bred in Wānaka, and equally in tune with wide-open spaces as Christina, joined the Perriam business shortly before the couple married in 2013. His career until then in hospitality had seen him spend several years at top local lodges and hotels including Edgewater Resort in Wānaka and Matakauri Lodge, a Robertson family lodge on the shores of Lake Wakatipu. He’d sought a break from the burnout-inducing pressure of the hospitality industry and returned to Wānaka to sell real estate for a year, during which he met Christina.

Christina’s fashion business (first written about in NZ Life & Leisure, January/February 2010) has always been intrinsically linked to her family’s Bendigo Station and the superfine merino wool it produces. Merino is likely in her DNA. Her father, John Perriam, was pivotal in reshaping the marketing of superfine fleeces and her mother, Heather, pioneered retailing merino garments at the small store in Tarras. (The location has since developed into a travelers’ stopping point with a collection of shops and a café.)

At one stage, Christina ran her fashion business from Tarras. But, as the bustling little enclave became more popular, it became increasingly difficult to focus on the strategic work needed to grow her business into the operation she wanted.

About the time she moved to Wānaka, she was introduced to Callum and says they’ve been pretty near-inseparable since that first meeting, and their match of skills has been complementary. “He is the doer while I’m the one with my head in the clouds,” she says.

“He jumps in behind me and gets stuff done, so we are a good business pair. I’m the one waking up and saying, ‘We should do this...’ And he’s my reality check asking the questions, the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ and ‘what fors?’”

Callum says they each carry out distinct roles within the business and if that wasn’t the case, or if one was to interfere in the role of the other, there might be a disaster. So far, so good. No calamities.

What they carry equally is a passion for keeping their business true to its promise of quality New Zealand-made, locally sourced products made from merino wool. During the lockdown, with their attention on Perriam online, they focused on a relatively new range of knitting patterns, needles and yarn supplied as a knitting kit. Christina predicted that while the range was already going well, there might be an increased locked-down interest in craft.

The solitary crack willow in Lake Wānaka near Christina Perriam and Callum Grant’s Roys Bay home is the country’s most famous tree and one of the world’s most photographed. It is getting a much-needed breather without the queues of tourists lined up for the obligatory “Wānaka tree selfie”. Christina wears a coat from her winter 2020 range made from cashmere and merino. Callum is holding their son Walter.

Christina knitted this popcorn-stitch jersey for Walter during lockdown using Perriam Bendigo merino yarn. “During the lockdown, we gave away a free beanie with the sweater knitting pattern, which was created by local pattern designer Lisa Craig. It was the first jersey I have completed, and the whole feeling of knitting my son something out of Bendigo wool gave me immense satisfaction.” The toy is also sold at Perriam.

A pair of new huts on Bendigo Station’s backcountry gives the couple a place to get away from it all. The huts were built where three valleys meet, beneath Castle Rock and beside the gently burbling Devil’s Creek. ( The site is reasonably close to a plaque marking the geographic centre of the South Island.) Christina kept the interior design warm and comfortable with furnishings of 100 per cent natural products, mostly made from wood, leather and merino.

The Series III Land Rover is among the most covetable and collectable of Land Rover’s many sought-after models. One million were produced between 1971 and 1985 and the company claims that, 20 years later, 70 per cent of those vehicles are still in use. Callum found his in Invercargill and “paid too much for it”, says Christina, but it reminds him of his childhood — when his father owned one. It is not the most practical, nor the fastest vehicle on the road but Callum loves it anyway and even drives to and from work on his daily commute which, as this is Wānaka, isn’t much more than a hop and a jump anyway — a manoeuvre an old Landie does quite well. He most appreciates the sense of freedom the vehicle gives him when out on the hills.