ALL NATURAL

Inspired by her late grandmother and the rural tones of Te Anau, Kate Macdonald launched woollen jersey fashion business, Davaar & Co.

When the pandemic hampered Kate Macdonald’s plans to go on her OE in 2020, she took on full-time work on her century-old heritage family farm in Te Anau, Davaar Station. Although she loved the work, she soon started to feel as though she wanted to explore other areas.

“I’d always been really passionate about wool, and had worked in the shearing sheds in my uni holidays,” she says. She didn’t understand why this fibre – sustainable, natural, durable – wasn’t more highly valued. “It just didn’t make any sense to me.”

She decided she wanted to use the farm’s wool clip in a new way. “Not only to increase the value of our own clip, but also to raise awareness for the whole crossbred wool industry.”

Macdonald kept coming back to the idea of a fashion jersey. She founded Davaar & Co, selling knits crafted from 100 per cent natural, biodegradable crossbred wool and sustainably made entirely in New Zealand. Davaar & Co offers jumpers in four styles, each available in four colourways – snow, tussock, bark and granite.

“The colours that I’ve chosen reflect the environment that we live in down here, neutral tones that speak to the land, the tussocks and the hills and the mountains.” In creating these products, Macdonald also drew inspiration from her late grandmother.

“She was an incredible knitter and spinner; a very, very passionate woman about wool. So I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from her patterns, designs and knits that she used to make all of us when we were younger.”

After two years of research and preparation, Davaar & Co launched in February. The jerseys are available from the company’s website, with plans underway to open a store on the station itself in Te Anau later this year. Through the strength of her family’s century-long wool-growing experience, Macdonald hopes to encourage consumers to make the switch from fast fashion to farm fashion.

“We’re really proud to be fifthgeneration farmers, farming the land and caring for our animals and using wool, this amazing, incredible fibre, to create fashion garments that people can wear all around the world.”