End of an era: The jean genie lets himself go
King of jeans is moving on from Hurricane Denim, one of Wellington’s oldest specialist stores. Sarah Catherall reports.
David Byrne folds a stack of jeans and talks about the reasons why the fourth-generation retailer is shutting up shop after 30-plus years.
Known as Wellington’s denim king, the 57-year-old opened Hurricane Denim in 1991. Since then, he has sold about 150,000 pairs of jeans – if you laid those jeans together end to end, he reckons it would be equivalent to climbing Mt Everest 20 times. He’s so adept at selling jeans and knowing body types that he can glance at a customer and know instantly their waist size and what leg length they are likely to be. ‘‘I have loved helping customers find that perfect pair of jeans over the years,’’ he says.
A combination of several factors means that Byrne will sell his last pair of jeans in midFebruary. His six-year lease on the Willis St store is about to expire, and he also had a heart attack a year ago, so he wants more chill time. His wife, Kylie Archer, recently moved to Japan to work as New Zealand’s trade commissioner, so he wants to move over and support her.
‘‘It’s 10% off everything. The novelty has worn off and I’m looking forward to my next chapter,’’ he says, as he nods to a regular. ‘‘While we love our loyal customers and
I’m proud of everything the team has achieved, the current economy is tough and I can’t see it getting any better for a while. I want to go out on a high.’’
With New Zealand’s skills shortage and ongoing issues since Covid – shipping delays mean stock can take a fortnight or more to arrive – the independent retailer has woken in the night worrying who is going to be on the shop floor in the morning and whether boxes of jeans will arrive. Both Hurricane Denim and his other store, Miss Wong Clothier on College St, will close on February 18, and some stock is on sale up till then.
Byrne was raised on the shop floor. His family owned and ran Evans and Co Drapery, one of Wellington’s largest retailers, from the 1940s to 1970s, which was where he got the retail bug. From the age of eight, he used to go to
the Wrangler jeans warehouse in Kilbirnie in the 1970s. Byrne’s son Kurtis, 25, is one of the 250 staff Byrne has employed over the years and is currently on the shop floor with his father.
Good skilled staff are what makes the shop work and they can be hard to find. Byrne also makes sure he is behind the counter every day. ‘‘You need to be to know what customers are touching. You can’t work remotely. I need to know and my staff to tell me – that’s the 10th customer wanting that jean and I’ll get on to it and order it. I can’t run my businesses remotely. You need to be here.’’
Byrne shifted the store from Manners St to Willis St in 2017 in a bid to refresh the business. At the time, he bucked the trend as more and more stores moved to online sales. ‘‘People still want to try jeans on,’’ he says.
With a growing number of vertical chains leasing stores in Wellington, he is concerned about the loss of independents like him. He considered selling the business but decided to close the doors. ‘‘Going down that road is more complicated because I haven’t identified anyone who might be able to take it over. You need the right person so we are literally closing the doors, what stock we have left when the store shuts will go to our Miss Wong store.’’
While his two sons ‘‘might have dreamt of taking over the legacy’’ a few years ago, ‘‘we don’t want to give them that load’’, Byrne says of the current environment.
Over three-plus decades, he has seen denim trends come and go. Flares are back in, and the high-rise straight-legged look jean is fashionable for women – just like the 80s.
He loves sharing yarns, and the sociable businessman talks about one time in the 1990s, when
holes in jeans were trendy. ‘‘The wholesalers would take piles of jeans out into the paddocks and blast shotgun pellets to create holes,’’ he laughs.
The denim plants closed in New Zealand just before he opened in 1991. Those factories used to respond to trends quickly – who is old enough to remember the bubble jeans and skin jeans which New Zealanders wore in the early 1980s? Hurricane Denim’s jeans are made in Vietnam, China and Turkey, with all the denim buyers based in Australia.
For a man who touches jeans all day, you’d expect he’d have drawers of them. But, no. He has about 10 favourite pairs he wears over and over again. ‘‘I become too miserable when new jeans arrive because I think I might be able to sell them.’’
You’ll often find him in a suit when he’s away from the shop.
So what’s on his wish-list? ‘‘A denim suit,’’ he laughs.