Minx Footwear Founder Cushla Reed Featured on STRETTON UNLIMITED Podcast

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Welcome to Stretton Unfiltered, the home of real conversations on business, social impact, and the stories you don't usually hear. From women and men building and rebuilding and backing themselves to the journeys that sit behind it all, this is where we unpack it, unfiltered. If you're into these kinds of conversations, please, please hit follow now. It helps us grow this platform and bring you voices that deserve to be heard. This is Stretton Unfiltered. Let's get into it. Minx isn't just a shoe brand. It's a survival story disguised in glitter, platforms, tartan, and unapologetic color. Behind the brand is Cush the Reed, one of New Zealand's fashions great disruptors who's built Minx by refusing to think small, even when the business itself was pushed to the brink. What most people don't know is that Minx very nearly collapsed in the mid200s. manufacturing disasters, financial pressure, rejected product lines, offshore production failures, and the brutal re realities of competing globally as a New Zealand fashion business almost ended this company altogether. At one point, Cushla and her sister Angela were forced to split the business apart simply to survive. Staff redundancies followed. The company was carrying massive stress, production chaos, and the overwhelming pressure of trying to keep a creative business alive in a market dominated by cheaper imports. But instead of foing, Cushla reinvented. She shifted production to China before many New Zealand brands were willing to take that leap. Traveling through raw material markets, she described as a kid in a candy store, discovering color, texture, embellishment, and the possibility on a scale she had never experienced before. And that gamble changed everything. Minx evolved from a struggling local footwear company into one of New Zealand's most recognizable fashion shoe brands. Known for fearless design, comfort with attitude, and a customer who refuses to become invisible. While the world chased safe fashion, Cushla doubled down on individuality. The result is a brand that women don't simply wear, they identify with. Minx's customers are expressive, visible, confident, slightly rebellious, and deeply loyal. Much like the woman who created the brand itself. Good morning, Cushla. [laughter] Hey, thank you for joining us on Stretton Unfiltered. It's awesome to be finally talking to you and I totally appreciate that the drive from Auckland is a little bit gnarly and so just good to have you dialing remotely. We can kind of flesh out a little bit about your journey that I think will be hugely beneficial to a lot of people listening but also I guess you've been kind of a fellow creative sector well not competitor but someone else that's just working in the creative sector in a complimentary way that's been as enduring as we have. So it' be awesome to hear a little bit about your story this morning. I love that in the um bio that you sent me and we've managed to construct something out of all your paper clippings which is great that there's been lots of highs and lows just like we've had. So I think it's that sort of commentary that people rightly or wrongly love to hear which is um they love to learn about the hard stuff as well as hear about the successes. But I'm going to hand it to you now and sort of populate you with some questions that um will give us a flow as to I guess the journey that you've taken which has been substantive. But let's start at the beginning and talk a little bit about how it all started for you and why shoes. Well, my mother fell in love with a shoe maker in on the carpet coast and why can I? Um and I think I was probably around about the age of 13 at the time and I just found it really glamorous that um he had these buyers coming I guess to set the scene too. It was a very maledominated industry uh when I was involved at those early early years. So all male buyers of big high volume. So so the main customers were like easy buy the big mail order catalog the shoe barwhich was like a uh like a mass produced lowriced kind of Yeah. Yeah. Hannah's we used to supply school shoes to Hannah. So um it was a really it was quite an interesting time. uh we would make only maybe seven styles a season in those days in about I don't know seven different colors and it was very same same same cookie cutter volume locally driven but I found it really quite fascinating and I quite enjoyed watching the process of an idea um through conversation of what a client was looking for in terms of a school shoe for example and then and following that all the way through to the concept of the idea to it being designed mind standing the test of time. Yeah. And it was Yeah, it was great. I I remember going out when I was young um with my stepfather, I'd have a day off school and I would model the shoes for the buyers and I just thought I was the bee's knees doing that. And [laughter] and then of course if he sold a lot, it was all very exciting. You know, there was that that high and that buzz of like, oh my gosh, they just bought, you know, 2,000 pairs of a black school shoe. So I guess that was the start of the feeling of seeing something from start to finish uh in terms of creating uh the design process selling and then it going to market and seeing people wearing the product. Um although obviously that type of product wasn't so much my buzz when I was younger in terms of what it looked like. Um but I certainly got hooked in the feeling of of what it was like to go on that journey. Um, I I guess for sort of reflecting back a little bit too, I I think although I didn't know it at the time, a lot of my peers around me, my school buddies and things like that, um, you know, my yearbook, they wrote, "Oh, the design queen or the styly styly girl or or the person that was brave enough to wear a sailor uniform type thing onMuy Day." So I always had that kind of individuality to my personality to kind of want to step outside the norm of what was on trend in that moment. So I always was kind of either a little bit ahead or a little bit sideways of where everyone else was kind of heading. Um and I guess that gave me a little bit of confidence to move forward in whatever direction or career I wanted to kind of or pathway I wanted to choose. Probably my first lesson I guess. I got a hundred questions out of that because you're talking my language and that I was I guess I built my clothing company with the Tim Glassens, the Jared Gillespies, the that's who taught me that's who taught me the stuff that I know. So they were pretty hard task masters around deliveries and quality. They had very high expectations understandably um which could also get you into a lot of trouble. Um, but effectively it was the generic platform of trade which taught me everything I needed to know about costing things affordably so that people would buy multiple items as well as also how to construct my business in a way that it was going to be sustainable moving forward because those were the guys that taught me. So certainly that's a wonderful blast from the past. I know the excitement of those larger orders and I became very hooked on that space and spend I can remember 20,000 shift dresses that I sold to farmers trading um only had $4 a dress but that was enough to to to make me kind of get incredibly excited around those big orders as opposed to where we are today where we sell one or two frocks. Um, so but interesting. So much more of a generic product and you were taking time off school. So was it adult product or kids product that he was selling? Uh, it was it was uh predominantly adult product apart from like the school shoes that we, you know, I I still have the random red school shoe and and I believe they that the Southland school in in Vicagle still sells a red school shoe. But yeah, red school shoes, black school shoes was good volume. Um, also I think we in those days we made bowling shoes, believe it or not, for for the bowling green that had a really soft outsole so that they could stand on the greens and not damage them. So yeah, some some random orders, but then you know the the sandal that everybody had but in the 10 different colorways, the navy, the red, the tan, the brown, the black, uh the white and the ivory or bone. Um, yeah, it was quite different. Quite a different way of doing business back then. Yeah. Was it all made in New Zealand or was it made offshore? All made in New Zealand, everything. So, I I think that was the other thing, too, about these big orders. You knew how much it meant to not only, you know, Colin, my stepfather, who was owner of the factory, and myself as being part of the family, but also to the team of staff. So, I think at one point we had about 40 production staff. It was it was a significant industry and business in its day. Um and then you know a a lot changed the economy changed you know all the uh we started importing the the tariffs came off and um we and the licensing agreements changed and so you a lot more people started importing product into the country. Um and that was at the point where my stepfather became quite sick and ill and my sister and I decided hey let's uh he tried to sell it but as you would know Anna um you are the business and he was the business with the design so he actually found that he didn't have a business he could sell and so yeah we we knew that we could fall into those footsteps cuz we'd been following them for a really long time. So I said to my sister hey let's let's look to buy the factory ourselves and take it over. She was away overseas at the time studying footwear, fashion and design at Deontford University in the UK. And I and so she had two years to finish. I said, "Well, I'll hold the business here and look after it while he's recovering and see if we can make a go of it." And yeah,when she came back two years down the track, we sat down together and we said, "We don't like the things we're making. We need to change our business formula. Uh women are wearing only black. They are, you know, it's dull. It's boring. Every international person that came to our country would say, "Oh, New Zealand women are are dressing abhorrently. They've got no personality." So, yeah, we sat literally with a pen and paper and color swatches and started creating um a our first collection of Minx, which was really based on point of difference, color, femininity, uh and being quite bold. Back in the day, we were fortunate enough for a randomly again invaggle uh taxi driver created some moi fishkin leather and and phoned us at the t same time that we were looking to launch Minx and said, "Hey, I've got this leather. I don't know what to do with it. Can you make shoes out of it?" And we're like, "Oh, send us some skins and we'll see how we go." And so we did. We made these beautiful high heel, glamorous sandals out of New Zealand native moi fish skin. Uh and fortunately the media at that time which was very generous and open to reporting on New Zealand designers less likely to be doing that these days I feel no dig to any media out there but maybe a little [laughter] um yeah they they picked up the story the wondrous story of turning you know a salty fish into a beautiful fashion product and item. Yeah great great hook for the media and very fortunate to all coincide with the launch of our Minx footwear brand um at the time. So yeah, it got us the media and it got us the exposure that we needed to get a bit of a footprint out into the New Zealand uh New Zealand ladies minds. I guess uh I guess the next challenge from that though of course was converting our retailers into seeing our product as a commercial and viable product to uh want to have in their stores. uh bearing in mind that they stocked you know the same shoe in seven colors but mostly dull colors and uh it was quite a push for them. We launched in Wellington. We had I don't know 120 dignitaries come to our launch. They we had all our product photographed beautifully on model and uh and the product on plints like in a galler. It was amazing. We only had I think we invited about 25 local Wellington retailers and only one turned up. Uh the rest were media and um celebrities and things like that. Um the we had Sachi and Sachi took us on as a bit of a charity case at the time actually. And yeah, they they were like, "Right, where are the retailers? We're going to target them. We're going to talk to them. We you don't need to be involved with that conversation. U we're going to see how they feel." And we're like, "Oh, see that one retailer over there in the corner? That's that's our guide. That's our guide." at the end of the night, you know, they they came over and we said, "Oh, so what did they say? What did they say?" Oh, they said, "Oh, well, it's it's not good." Um, it's really not good. Uh, have to tell you that they they reported back saying that New Zealand women will never wear color. They absolutely will never understand this brand. Um, and you've got no legs. It will never go anywhere. So, you know, it's that good old story of you can give up at that point after getting that far. But, um, I hopped on a plane, went to see one of the biggest footwear stores in Australia and they were like, "Wow, this is a breath of fresh air. Can't believe it's made in New Zealand." And they literally bought container loads of our first collection. So, it's sad that Australia first launched our brand. So, a couple of questions from that. What year are we talking for the launch? What what year is this? Uh it was the year 2000. 2000. 2000. Um so 8 years um ahead. I was in ' 92. So 1992. So 8 years on. Yeah. And I mean probably familiar story I would think. Well, there's elements of it that are, you know, around the non-acceptance or the frustration, but I guess I took a generic pathway and thought the generic guys have taught me everything I know. I know about um affordable pricing. I know about where sweet spots are. I'm going to amplify that a bit if I start to think about doing it myself, but initially I was supplying the chainsaws. So, when I broke away to do my own thing, which I broke away from a company here in Morrenville of all places that was making Levi jeans and um Oh, wow. uh um military gear for the for the police and the army. Uh I I sort of went to this the people that I knew, the relationships I had and the stuff that I love to do, which was trading, you know, um making in New Zealand just like you, buying my fabric here, but bering with the wholesalers and respective end of lines or end of runs. Yeah. I'll take all the colors, even the shitty browns. Um, and I only want to pay $2 a meter, you know, so I would clear the rum that they were stuck with and then work with Kmart or Farmers or whatever that was to really do a price pointed item. So, it's very, you know, just a different pathway before I got into building my own label where you went straight into your own label. Well, actually 100%. Um we we ran parallel because it was so risky what we were doing and we originally didn't have any orders and we still needed to keep our staff employed in the factory going. So we we ran we ran parallel the old CAGY CC label uh along in country lane I think it was our our other label alongside the Minx brand because it was way too risky to just cut it off and and start again on a new pathway. But yeah, we did exactly the same thing. We would go to our Tasine tanning and we would look at the ends of line leather and and sort of you know check the quality and can we make that into you know a better price school shoe and la. I mean yeah it was interesting to and I think it teaches you a lot about economies and and economics of of buying those raw materials and how important it is to get your costings right for the market. I think building those sustainable businesses, working with those generic players where the expectations are a lot higher but also exciting as you say because the level of order can be substantive versus you know the smaller amounts that sit within once I got into my own label. Um it was very much initially with those independent retailers but that was just hard work. Um and a lot of them the orders were very small and probably a good 50% of them never paid. Um and if they or when they eventually did it was sort of months later and it's just no way to run a viable business depending on others and their often poor business practice. So that's why I went to a vertical platform. I thought you know if these guys can do it why don't I give it a go and I guess that's where your story will start to move too won't it into so you're in you get get the big order in Australia um and what happens then because it's kind of exciting. It was really exciting. It was really exciting. And I mean a few things, you know, like I was young. I was completely naive. I mean, I hopped on the tram and thought that Melbourne was great, that the trams were free with my big suitcases of s had no idea. Yeah. Also didn't realize that that for that fortunately um the retailer that I'd made the appointment with, Figgins Holding, which which was absolutely huge. had a massive warehouse opposite Flender Station in Melbourne. The secretary, I didn't know, was having a bit of an affair with the main buyer and owner of the business. I had no idea. Um, but I was so grateful that cuz she was the gatekeeper to the buyer cuz, you know, they had gatekeepers uh back in the day. And they did. And she was she was so lovely and friendly that I sent her flowers to say, "Thank you so much." you know, was so such a new small brand, small, you know, trying to launch and trying to punch above and la. I'm really grateful. Sent her flowers and chocolates as a way of saying thank you for this appointment, which she she told me later she had no one had ever bothered to do that, but also I didn't realize that she had a thing for the buyer, the owner. So, I got on her good side and he called her into the meeting of the showing and invited her to comment on the product that um was our new our new mix label. And of course, she was sold already before she'd even walked in the door because she'd been given chocolates [laughter] and flowers. Flowers. So, um we were really, really, really lucky. And you know, it was amazing. It was we we were just churning out beautiful Minx product. We were making money. We were um developing new product. We were going up to Spain to buy new raw materials and it was a buzz and a vibe and it was exciting until macroeconomics kicked in and overnight the exchange rate our dollar appreciated against the Australian. So it's great if you're going on holiday to Australia as a New Zealand tourist, but it's absolutely terrible if you've been exporting to a country and there's that 20% extra margin in it for them. So overnight our our product uh increased 20% um in uh in wholesale cost uh without any extra value to them or or perception of value to them. So uh we learned a good lesson that we'd been placed in the market at a certain price point because of the exchange rate and then obviously when that moved there was no room for our price point to move in the market. [snorts] Yeah. Yeah. Um some good things though were going on in the background. I had a team of sales agents in Australia. So I had um five sales reps in all the different states. I would fly into Sydney, deliver them their ranges. Uh we'd have a Anset, do you remember Anset Golden Wings Lounge when we were going to the um Anset lounge and everyonewould fly in, meet me, we'd do a handover in the meeting room. I'd fly back to New Zealand. They'd have their new collections uh and they'd go off selling to all these individual stores. So I we had lots of independent retailers. we were also selling to at the same time. And then um you know as the media were kind of monitoring our story, they saw this huge success and growth for our brand in Australia uh and reported about it. And then of course once the local retailers find out that there's a New Zealand footwear label doing really well in Australia, they start having trust and faith in your ability to deliver good product that will sell and and is commercial. So then the New Zealand market came on board uh which was great because we started losing sales because the exchange rate in Australia. So it's always been a bit of this balancing act of economies between Australia and New Zealand and our our exports you know driving and and moving ahead and then coming back because of you exchange rates and thoseother kind of um your macro the things we can't really control that easily. Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? How you'd already started to reflect on what business in New Zealand had looked like. There was already beginning to be an appetite for the shoes just when you were starting to find the difficulty and the struggle points in the Australian market. I love the way life kind of works out like that. Um, yes. And interesting for me, I guess my biggest moment of loss was sort of came out New Zealand calling me in and saying, "Hey, we're no longer actually working with New Zealand suppliers. It's all going to the Australian buying office. You don't have any relationships. You might like to try setting them up." But that was a $5 million account for me. And I can remember driving down the motorway in my Mitubishi 300L van because that's what I drove around. Yeah, we had one of those 300. Oh, you got it better than me. Like I would have had fabric in the back cuz I would have been bering with someone like Snow Ranger or someone like that. And then sort of getting home and going, "Wow, what next?" You know, what does this look like? So, and there'll be so many points in your story where that's kind of happened too for you because for all of us, that's the commonality I'm unpicking as I get into these wonderful conversations with um with women across and men across all sorts of different sectors. But you didn't stay manufacturing in New Zealand, did you? No. No. And I I probably to more to your point that you just discussed, I think there is a you know we've been both of our brands have been around in the market for a long time and so people just assume that we've been really successful for that whole entire journey. They don't realize the journey has been full of hills and bumps and um rivers and all those things to cross and get over. But yeah, definitely um Australia was great and then it wasn't. New Zealand came on um and then we we got I I think um we won a grant actually one of the first businesses to receive a grant from the government uh to invest in to dollar for dollar invest in pushing out exporting to another market. So we invested in going to the states and showing at um the big global trade fair over there for three years. Six shows we went over and and showed the Minx collection. Massive traction. We had teen magazine all over us. We had you lots and lots of media, lots of interest and and a lot of sales. But the American market was really quite different to the New Zealand market in the way that they operated with us. Uh and we very quickly learned that if you're from an isolated country like New Zealand, there's not that same respect of, you know, prompt payment. We get partial payments and then we get some some random excuse of I had to sail 20% of your collection at the end of the season. So, I'm just taking that as a discount. Taking it off. And what do you do? I mean, am I going to get on a plane and am I going to stand at the front door and take my stock back or or ask for, you know, money or put a picket out the front and say, "Don't deal with this retailer." I mean, you're not going to do that. So, it got really it got really challenging. Um and at about the same time manufacturing in New Zealand got even more challenging. So as you can imagine and it's it happened it happened very very quickly in the footwear industry slower in the garment industry I believe. Um but in the New Zealand footwear industry we had tanneries closing which made all our leather. We had our um the infrastructure was going. to all the people that supplied us with um buckles and zipper, you know, heavy duty zippers and uh eyelets and all the grindery bits that are lowcost items that go into making a shoe. No one really wanted to actually bring that stuff in anymore. Uh insole board. uh at the same time all our um our engineers that uh fixed our um mach our sewing machines. I mean I don't know who you have helping you with all of that but um the guys were aging out there. there just there wasn't a young enthusiastic um sewing machine engineer or or or clicking press maintaining engineer able to come in and help um resuscitate your already 40-year-old um plant and equipment that is was also dying around us at a great rate or not. So um so we had pressure of you know no lack of raw materials. So therefore it became more and more difficult to design uh what you wanted to uh in terms of your truth to your brand and what you wanted to create. Um a and then it became more difficult to um to produce it because your plant and equipment were getting really old. Uh also staff uh training our staff. No one wanted to be a machinist. and and then the other side of our factory which is you know the 3D molding part of it is very very you have to be really strong to uh form leather into into shoes. So uh you we just we found it really difficult to find staff. So we had we literally had I think it was in about 200 five or six we had a um another uh industry we thought leader uh approach us that had a factory in Fiji. Um they were they used to make a brand called Zack Shoes. Um I don't know. Yeah. Basically Yeah. Yeah. Uh so they they had a factory in Fiji. They approached us and they said, "Hey, look, we don't know how you're managing to still keep your overheads low enough to produce a a profit making in New Zealand." So, would you consider coming to Fiji and utilizing our extra uh production capacity? So, we've got the machinists, they're all skilled, uh the the wage cost is lower. We've sorted out a great agreement with DHL to get product moved backwards and forwards between the countries, blah blah blah. So hopped on a plane, did due diligence and the due diligence for me and for for my sister and I who was with me still atthis point, it was all about operational, you know, like how will the factory make our patterns, our design, our style of manufacture. So, we went over, we saw that they could, we trained them, and we we had to make a decision. And it really was, you're all in or you're all out because they needed uh some of the plant and equipment that we had in our New Zealand factory that they didn't have there to actually make the kind of production we needed. So, we made a decision that we were going to be all in and we were going to shut our New Zealand factory down and export our plant and equipment and leathers and everything, all our IP up to Fiji. So, we did that. I remember being interviewed on News Talk ZB by um by someone and um and I said, "Oh, this is going to be the greatest thing. It's just going to mean we can stay in the market. We can export more. that we can still keep a portion of things open here and D. Um, and I remember getting a phone call from a lady about half an hour after the interview and she was in like an outdoor furniture industry outdoor furniture made for the warehouse and and and that at the time and she said, "Don't do it. Don't go to Fiji. It'll never work out. It's a really bad decision. Stay New Zealand made. We did it. It's been a disaster." But, you know, we had we were already we were already down the pathway and in that moment I was like, you know, there's always going to be those naysayers out there that it's not going to work. And true sadly true to form uh she was sadly correct and I actually can't blame the Fijians for uh the diminish of the business and it did happen very quickly. So it was literally within about 5 months of uh of wow a journey in Fiji. So um the process was if you remember I said I did due diligence on manufacturing. What I hadn't done due diligence on um and it was an absolute assumption. It was the company I went into business with they were absolutely in a pickle and I didn't realize that they hadn't paid their landlord for something like six or no maybe a year. they had paid their land for a year. So, you know, we had export orders uh for Australia, we had huge export orders for America on the go, plus we had our New Zealand domestic orders all on flow to be produced uh up in Fiji. And you know, I just remember the horror of trying to ring the factory one day and then thinking, "Oh, it's another Fiji holiday." And then trying to ring them the next day and thinking, "Oh, this is weird. I can't see any Fiji holiday." and then ringing the actual foreman on his cell phone and saying, "What's going on? Like, why why can I not get through the factory?" And he said, "Oh, haven't you heard? Um, we've been locked out. Everything's been seized within the factory. Um, it's all gone." So, all our shoes, our patterns, our equipment, our plant. I flew up the next day and tried to ask the government for assistance and they just actually that was another experience in itself because they were very intimidating. the Fijians were, you know, don't call our country out on it. It's, you know, it was the people you went into business. Sorry for you, but not helping you. Go back. Go back home is basically what we told. So, it was a frightening experience and hugely um I mean it was horrendous in the moment if I think back. Not only that, we had sent really good raw materials up to Fiji uh that we hadn't yet paid for, thinking we were going to get the product made and turn that into uh into cash flow. Flow. Yeah. So, um, the Dominion Post wrote an amazing article about what had happened to us and how bad it was and that it was going to be the end of Minx and this New Zealand label and the girls were having a massive cuz we hadn't even closed our factory completely. We were still in the the windown process. So, we still had, you know, all the old lasts to get rid of and clean up the factory and things. And so we had this massive sale and I remember ringing all of our suppliers saying, "I will sell my house. I will pay you. I will not be like some of the other [snorts] industry leaders that just disappeared overnight owing a lot of money which was a quite an epidemic. Uh if I think back u to that time in the mid200s so um of course they were like oh he's you know you must pay us, you must pay us." Um yeah, so the the the joy of the sale is that uh the Dominion Post wrote such a clever article promoting our sale without it being an advert um that we had from Wellington and all over the country come and buy up all our product and turned us into a a cash zero position. So we didn't owe anyone any money. We didn't have any money. So [laughter] uh it was it was it was an okay spot to be in. And um a a couple of things happened during that process. Um one thing was we had all these amazing women and I'm sure you'll agree to this that had believed in our brand and to this day are still our customers uh that had been on the journey and the story with us. So um the woman that owned Florida's Cafe in Wellington came in. She had uh I didn't know this woman at all, but she she bought a bottle of wine uh and and a boxed cake and a card and she gave it to me uh in front of all these not not a big ceremony, but just sort of said, "Oh, here." and just handed me the the cake and the note and things. And I opened it up sort of time in motion and as women kind of gathered around me to see what I was doing and I read the card out loud and it and it basically said, you know, thank you for being um thank you for being you. You're going through a tough time now. Uh drink this bottle of wine, eat this cake, uh but for God's sake, get back up and get going again. And in that moment, I felt like I I just felt like someone felt the pain and someone knew what we were going through and someone believed in in the brand and us and what we were trying to do uh in the market. And I mean, we were all in tears. I just remember all these women with me in tears and that realization of actually we we're more than just a pair of shoes in this moment. we are we mean something to more than just ourselves and our staff and the people that um are on the journey you know in our immediate journey with us. Um so that was one thing that happened that we realized that women you know did like us and and wanted us to survive and believed in our journey and product. And the second thing that happened is we had about five different entrepreneurial business people come out of the woodwork and say, "Oh my gosh, this is just a a hump in your road. You girls are amazing. You've got spirit and drive and energy." Um, and don't let this be the end of your story. What do you need to keep going? Um, and you know, one of them was the big save furniture people, the McKim family. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They came out and um said, "Oh, you know, we've got manufacturing in Vietnam. if you want that. And um we had uh there was the the guy uh what um last name Love, he made uh um Campbell, you know, the the famous golfers clothing um Kia Kaha. He label Kaha. He's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's no longer in business, but um he was like, "Oh, you know, I can help you. What do you need?" And we had an American company. So, we had several different options and pathways all of a sudden open up which was again kind of reinforcing our confidence cuz you know you've lost all your confidence in this moment and your business. Uh yeah. So, so the option that we went with was to uh for my sister and I to separate. So, at this point we were together. Uh she had a family based on the carpet coast and we still had two sto two two retail stores pretty small kind of I'm going to say seconds type retail stores that were in Otaki. I don't know if you remember Oti used to have a lot of those. [laughter] Yeah. Well, you probably had Did you have a store? We had an outlet store. Oh yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so yeah, so so she kept the stores going um and and took that side of the business over and the stock and then I I took the brand name and paired up with uh with a New Zealand company that was developing footwear in China and yeah, it was it was quite a huge change um from the point of view of family separation uh and from the pointof view of um trusting my ability on my own to design a brand and keep it going. Bearing in mind that my sister was the one who had done the footwear development and design degree. I had just been the salesperson [snorts] uh of the business and the brand. So I had to learn pretty quickly how to draw a shoe uh and how to annotate it all out uh and do that side of things. You've given me a million questions now. Um I guess the the first thing is is with the Fiji um struggle or more than struggle but the Fiji debacle. What year was that? Which year are we up to now? Uh [snorts] 2006. 20 2006. Yeah. So interesting if we go back to the start of your conversation and all of that change that was happening in the market around the trims um and the fabrics and the I guess the the the suppliers of the the work that also was happening for us. So that they weren't interested. So we couldn't access very much and those people that were left were pretty intermittent. You know, do you want an orange zip? Hell no. We only do navy zips now, you know, cuz that's totally Yeah. So we we faced all that as well. Possibly you were way more specialist and but um but that's interesting because that has, you know, the question I get asked the most is why wouldn't you make in New Zealand? You know, what about those jobs and what about, you know, and a really good answer for that has been formulated years and years ago, but you know, there's nothing here anymore. There's nothing here. And the irony, the last men standing or women standing were actually Chinese outworkers. So they were small outworking garages and people's homes in sort of South Auckland of immigrants, you know. So effectively, it was not as good as we could get in China where the work was controlled, the quality was great. I had access to if I could dream it, I could put it on a garment, you know. So, so all sorts of interesting challenges there. But I can certainly see I love the fact that you within that final sale or the sale that you thought was final, you get another woman who comes and really leaves the ladder down and empowers you to think differently. And that's been one of my big mantras. You know, when we achieve success like we have, we've got to remember to leave that ladder down. And so, what are the moments where we can really empower another woman? And sometimes they're not that obvious. So, I love what she did. I love what you did. So, um, so much kudos to her. And what was the name of the cafe again? What was It's Florida eaters. And I actually I bumped into you years ago. I think we were at Wearable Arts outside Florida queuing up to get into that cafe for breakfast for um the show at the Wearable Arts. Yeah. Amazing. Incredible business. I've lost touch with her. In fact, it was just a moment. I I you know, she didn't want anything from me. She didn't want anything from that moment either. But every opportunity I get to be able to to say Florida. [laughter] Yeah. But to pay it forward to other women to other women, you know, to really think about how your journey can benefit other women and even more so when they get into struggle when they get into that struggle space. So I had no idea that it was so catastrophic for you in respect of as you say the only thing left would have been some defunct machinery and we too have the same problems. Um workers that were aging if they were local and very much people didn't want to sit on a machine all day and then those people that service machines it was such a dying art you know there was no one around that you could do that fortunately one or two hobbyists in the watu area so when we but we don't do a lot of construction here now or nothing it's just basically the um repairs if we have to repair or fix but yeah it's interesting the parallels but they're obvious parallels I guess too because we're both in that creative space Yeah, I think too that um you know I was I had been pretty much in manufacturing in New Zealand my whole entire life. Um we were very very active. We had a very active footwear association that was pro- New Zealand made and supporting local and all of that kind of thing. And I I was an an advocate for making a New Zealand made in New Zealand and to the point where I was a political risk and I I remember the days of Helen Clark and you know sort of th those chats with her about you know what am I going to tell my staff that I've that I've laid off uh my my factory form my factory format his skills weren't transferable basically um and you know he ended up boning boning chickens chickens at a tegle chicken factory and I kind of think, wow, it's there. Nothing wrong with that. I'm great. It's, you know, it's great. We need people to bone chickens. Yeah. Yeah. To totally. Yeah. But it it's his skill base was a hell of a lot bigger and broader um than that. Yeah. Than what he's ended up Yeah. having, you know, doing kind of thing. Yeah. And and I was shocked. I mean, she's an amazing ortor basically and and spin doctor. And she she she told me, well, you know, you're you're exporting your designs um for the greater good and it's going to be more beneficial to the country in the long run. And sadly, she ended up being right. But in the moment, in the moment, I was I didn't want that to be the answer. I wanted I wanted so much for us to hang in there because I had this belief that it would spin back around and that surely manufacture would come back to being onshore. Um but of course it hasn't and it it won't. I don't believe it ever will to be honest sadly. It's interesting because I had the same connection with Helen as well. So we're talking um the wonderful Helen Clark. I mean, I when I owned the Her Business magazine, I convinced you to do an interview with me at the I think it was the Sky City or um one of the big hotels in Auckland and we just talked like you and I are talking now. So, there was no script. There was no it was just hey, let's connect, let's interview. And I think I had about 200 women in this room and I never interviewed a politician or and it was just such a big hairy audacious goal. And in that conversation, we talked about the manufacturing base and as she said, people don't want to do those jobs anymore in New Zealand. So, and that's the diminishing. So, I was kind of the mind that it was going to go. So, conversations in China were going to be a very necessary conversation. Um, albeit tough for the consumer to kind of get their head around it. And I guess the same conversation is happening with AI at the moment, isn't it? I mean, um, I'm not going to use that because I, you know, believe that will implicate too many people in the job front and but the reality is is that we can't stop some of these things. So therefore, we either adapt or die. So that's exactly get on the train. Get on the train and go for the ride. Uh, and learn new things and learn to pivot. And I think probably one of the biggest benefits of being in the fashion industry is that it does keep you humble. you um you know, you're only as good as your next collection. You have to reinvent every single season. Um and so it does make us resilient and it does make us more open to change. Uh which is a good thing. That is a it's a really good thing, a beneficial thing. And now I'm excited to know what next. So you and your sister have split and you're on your own learning to draw shoes. Yeah. So work out what the process is. Yeah. Yeah. um learning to draw shoes and um and figuring that out. And I had some uh great business partners at the time that uh helped guide me through working in China. I had dabbled a little bit in China to be fair prior to that on my own. I was bringing in a few styles that was subsidizing our New Zealand factory. I didn't want to make a big deal about that at the time because I was so pro- New Zealand made, but I was also, like you were saying, aware that we needed to change uh and I needed to have some established networks. Um so I'd already started a network on my own. Uh and thenwhen the um when these uh brothers in the footwear industry came uh sidled alongside me and said, "Hey, let me take the pain out. We've got factories. Uh we've got uh funds to help fund your trade cycles. uh you just design and you just sell and and you know it'll be a lot a lot easier. Concentrate on the things you're good at. So um so that's what I did and I yeah I went up to um went up to China kid in a candy store. It's quoted everywhere. Um you you would have been the same I'm sure. Yeah. Um you get there and you see all the things. I mean, I've been to trade shows in Milan and Disseldorf, but I had never seen uh the extent in size of collections of raw materials that were available as what I did in China. Um, and I I was just insatiable greed of wanting to, oh, look at that new heel. Let's try that and um and let's try this new button. And the factories were immenable. Yes. M they they thought if you sample they they had a formula the the Chinese and they they still have this formula. Um if you sample one shoe the expectation is you will sell x amount of perage. So when I first started it was you design one shoe we will get a thousand pairs of sales from that one shoe. I didn't realize it at the time. So I was just sampling sampling. Oh they just want to make more samples for me. How amazing. Um, of course there was a bit of disappointment sometimes when I didn't hit the mark with the theQs. Um, and of course now also China's gone through a lot of change and and those have had to drop in line with the actual global economy. Um, but yeah, it was it was it was great. It was a buzz working up there. I'd arrive at 5 in the morning. I'd be at on the factory floor at 8:00 in the morning. I'd be working till midnight. It had that ADHD kind of kick in where you just focused on that one task of designing with color and materials and uh it was it was really great and they were just as enthusiastic on the journey with you and they make things quickly and they were really responsive. So those early days were really really good. You know my business partners were getting the volume that they needed to bolster their business uh and their uh their trade. It meant that they could fill more containers so freight was cheaper for them. So, it was a win-win for everybody until we got hit again with um probably the GFC around about that time. Um and I started noticing that because they accompanied me on all my design trips that their styling became a little bit like mine, their colors became a little bit like mine, and their pricing became a little bit cheaper cuz they could control that cuz they were in charge of that. So, they ended up competing with me quite directly. Uh, and the market was starting to tell me, my retailers were starting to tell me, "Hey, you know, your shoes are looking a lot like I never saw their collections. I never saw their catalogs or uh their pricings or anything like that." So, it was my retailers informing me, hey, you know, just got your back a little bit here. Like, you need to probably look at changing what you're doing somehow because you've got you you're you're being chased by your partners, basically. So, I had to do something about that. and I had to be really strategic about that. So they also owned the agent that I was working with. Um, so I had to restart. Um, and it was bloody hard and really scary. I I needed to know where I sat legally. Could I restart without them and all of those kind of things. So, you know, as business owners, we become a bit little bit lawyer, a little bit accountant, a little bit designer, a little bit HR. So, um, yeah. So I I moved away from from the boys and in the end it became, you know, a split that was that was okay. Um, you know, it's a little bit of there's a little bit of competitiveness still between the two of us. It's probably a healthy competitiveness, but it meant I I could independently remove myself and then it became so they'd also started putting restrictions on me as well. So then I was opened up again and I could design bigger, broader, wider uh without any restrictions and control my market, my marketing um and and that side of the business a lot more. Um yeah, so it was another rebirth in that moment uh when I split in 2008 I think. Um or maybe it was later than that. No, must have been later than that. It is hard to put the years together, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it was two 2018 17 18 probably. Oh wow. So like a 10 year 10 year cycle maybe um of those changes. So um yeah when when um yeah when I when I split uh it was the first time I'd truly been on my own. So it's the first time I didn't have a sister or business partners or anything like that. And um I had to 100% believe in my ability of what I'd learned in my knowledge and I was fine. Um but that was a really big you know I have a really loving supportive husband and he is my sounding board still to this day. Um but I I really had to know that I could go it alone and be independent of of of everybody. Um, yeah. And I I think I would like to say to more women out there, you've got this. You know this. Uh, do it. If you can give it a go, do it on your own. Yeah, there's there's nothing like that. A massive sense of accomplishment when you can do it on your own as well. Yeah, I think it's um I love the parallels again because I can remember my first time in China and I was exactly the same, you know, just could not believe the plethora of stuff that I could include in a garment, the fabrics I could have, just the diversity of the offer. And you know, I was up at 7:00. Um I would create all my appointments as breakfast appointments before I went into the markets was we would just bring the um factories to us and say this is what we're you know this would be the day work we've you know this dress that style this is how we're going to do that but equally as excited I mean I I'd get into there we get off the flight and we'd start working. So there certainly no oh my god I'm jetlagged or you know we just got into it. And another thing that we haven't paralleled on is that I've always been on my own. So, I've never had a business partner. I've never So, I've had to work that out. And fortunately, we had a um an agent and we've had different agents working with us in China. That was tricky. It was better when I actually employed someone myself to be in that space doing some stuff with us. But, so just some wonderful parallels in China, as you say, is just such an awesome point of entry that first time you go there and you don't know what to expect. And it's so exciting with the It is really exciting and challenging. Oh, and I think also it's a sensory overload in the moment as well. Like uh those early days going to China in the uh in the early 2000s um were quite different to what they are now. Thank thank goodness. But I you know I remember being pregnant and stranded and no one to help me and um just feeling like in tears because they don't speak English. I mean, there's more that that that can now, but back in the day, it was it was really hard to get around. Cell phones didn't work or you wouldn't use your cell phone because it would cost you $10,to you got back to you were so isolated while you were there. Um, and and part of that um I think I I perform better under pressure anyway. I think it's just my personality, but um but that that's extreme pressure. No one can understand unless you've been in those environments like you have what that pressure is like in that moment. Um when you're I've been there I I know what that's like. They can't speak the lingo, you know, and they and it's it's frightening and it is, you know, the stuff where you just start all I've got is tears now. Where do I go? You know, like with how am I going to solve this? But even then, you didn't even have those translator apps on your phone. as you say, you couldn't use your phone because it was going to cost you $10,000 when you got back [laughter] to New Zealand. So, all of that, I've lived that and just know the but also the the wonderful kind of gains that came out of that market too once I learned to navigate it and once I got over that fear and actually set up a framework that worked for myself and that's when we recruited up there. She would meet us at the airport or on the train cuz we'd fly into Hong Kong, take the train to Guanghou. Yeah. Yeah. And then she would meet us and we'd get into the markets and she would get us back to the hotel, sort out food if we were going. So that became a lot easier. It's like when you get a nanny for your children, you know, suddenly you everything's kind of easier again. Yeah, 100%. I still work like that. I still have an agent that holds my hand the whole entire time that I'm over there. I couldn't I could not be without her. My Yeah, my factories now, these are long-standing relationships with my factories. they they are you know 10 12 years plus uh dealing and working with the same families and it's been great watching them grow uh as well. Yeah, it's it's been a it's been an interesting journey. I'm grateful of it. Well, now I want to talk about shoes because they um you know what I find? I've always thought it would be so much easier if I'd just been in shoes because I think where women um if they put on a bit of weight or if they are in a space where they're kind of struggling around, especially cuz you know, I guess the bane of so many women is that they just want to lose a bit of weight before they buy the dress. But that never happens with shoes. And that's the one thing that you can um I guess cheer yourself up with, invest in or um and I just I just want to hear about the psyche of retailing shoes I guess in from a female perspective. Yeah. Um fair cool. And I think like in garments uh where you have the changing shapes and sizes of women be under no illusion that absolutely happens in footwear as well. So um there are bunyions and corns and um plat fasciitis and u Morton's neurona and the bunanets and all of these Taylor's B like I feel like I could almost be uh you know um a churropotus you know one of those people [laughter] um in terms of understanding um you know foot is yeah foot issues that we genuinely have um particularly as we get older and I I think that's what I'm finding in my journey of footwear now too is that yes, we have a lot of younger women are still buying and supporting and coming into the brand, but equally our dieh hard supporters are, you know, they're my age and and they're getting a bit more mature and uh they're traveling a lot. So, um their needs for their footwear um you know, we do a lot of travel sneakers and we're aware of the weight of the product um because that's a real issue carding around a pair of shoes um and also the durability and comfort while traveling and um and and that kind of thing. So um so so yes the weight putting on weight so much is maybe not the issue. Uh it's just more about you know we lose collagen in and under the balls of our feet from the age of 40 it starts depleting. Um so there's all of those kind of little things that happen and you we would often hear particularly in the design process the ladies would say oh your your shoes have got a bit harder or they they're not as soft under under foot. Well, I I was using 3 mls of memory foam. Now I'm using five. So So where we've lost that collagen, I'm building it up with memory foam, which is all valid feedback, right? It's a learning process for me as well. Um twoyears ago I I launched a a wellness collection which has um been insatiably well supported like an absolute appetite for a product that is so respectfully designed for the changing of our feet basically. Um and it's it's what's been surprising is it's not only a mature foot that's buying into this wellness sector. It's also the younger girls as well where uh you know their arches have collapsed and there's no support in the shoes um or they've they've been born with um you know uh some foot conditions and things like that that are quite typical of that I didn't realize was such an issue. So, so what I've tried to do is adapt my sensibility to fashion, color, and and design, uh, into footwear that is actually got this next level of of health and wellness, you know, knee alignment, hip alignment, keeping all of them straight. Um, into the into the actual shoe. So, from the foot up, giving you giving you health. Uh, and it's been really good. Um the the last thing I wanted to do was promote it as a comfort range. Uh although it is absolutely comfortable, I didn't want it to be associated with ugly, heavy um I don't know, oldie brands. I I didn't want ladies to have that stigma of feeling like they're buying in, oh god, I've got old and I'm having to wear a comfort shoe now. Well, it's interesting you talk about Comfort Shoe because we started when we were in Australia, we were next door to Comps. Remember Comps? Amazing. Amazing. And like um I started to work with the girls around designing a shoe like they wanted to do a shoe with me, a collaborative um and their biggest problem um was the perception they had in the market around those shoes being for a much older demographic. And not even older, I guess, in physical age, but just older in thinking, just older in look and older. And so, um, they were really struggling to reinvent. And they haven't, have they? Cuz they're gone. Well, they Who are they now? You know, they changed their brand out. They rebranded to Ziera, which cost them a lot of money. The you possibly met the husband and wife, the Robertson family, who were just Asian lady that I met that day. Okay. She was I think she was the head buyer and it was Yeah, we were starting to think about Yeah. about doing something like that. Well, the their family were actually hugely supportive of us when you know when I um we were going to Vegas and showing over there. One of our biggest challenges was actually year after year rolling out a stand that looked like New Zealand. Like I had all these native pebbles um sunk into resin um to be on brand to New Zealand and these grasses that I brought over and all this kind of stuff. and they looked after uh they looked after all because they were also showing at this massive fear. They had stores their own stores in America. Um they were they were a huge huge brand. Um and they were they were again like the ladder putting the ladder down. They were like what do you need? We'll store the TV screen. We'll do this for you. Um so I have a lot a lot of um respect for their family. Um, but you're right, as the brand aged literally I feel their their customers were dying and so that was their conversation. They knew that, you know, and they were looking at ways to invigorate it. And I think that's been an interesting thing for myself as I age, you know, what does that brand look like because you take that community with you and as you say, they're loyalists in the way that um they know the story, they they buy into the brand, they love the brand. And the wonderful thing has been Sam entering the business in respect. Yeah. And willingly entering the business, not a, you know, you [laughter] need to do this because I've worked for so long, you know. I just asked her how many years and she said 10 years she's been working with you. I do have two daughters and um one's 18 and one's um 13. And I I'm on the cusp of like do I create a pathway or do I encourage them into something different? Yeah. Yeah, it's it's a difficult chat, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it took Tan a long time to decide she wanted to be here and I was very much in the hey, I'm cool if you don't want to do this, but you know, um eventually we're going to have to make a decision. And so, um yeah, but she came in and out and in and out and um but if you know, then one day it was this, okay, I am going to do this. I'm going to come home. I think living in Hamilton didn't appeal so much when she was um in UK and Bondi and Sydney and so the whole Tron thing became a bit difficult but once she got here and um and now she's had a boy of her own river I mean so there's a whole kind of family vibe with mom here at 87 and so there's just a it's it works it really works yeah so it really works well and that's a typical age thing where your priorities shift and change don't they over time and you've allowed her to go and do an experience of those other things So hopefully there's no regret or, you know, oh, I missed out on doing this because I was here with the business type thing. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Well, actually, she didn't come in until her late 20s, so she'd kind of um been out there doing her thing. More shoe questions. So, are there shoes in the collection? I mean, we have a dress, we have dresses in the collection that I end up doing season after season after season after season, and they really are rock stars. And then suddenly one day, I wake up and they're not anymore. It's just finished. They're gone. Have you got stories like that? The shoes? Um, absolutely. Exactly the same. And I think in 2014, I designed a boot that we called the Willlet boot. Uh, it had a little, it was a sneaker boot, had a little internal 5cm lift in it. So, you felt like you were wearing a heeed sneaker boot. Uh, it was the first of its kind. Um, and got ripped off fairly quickly. Probably two years I had. So, I had the market for 2 years um by myself, which was amazing. Um it was I guess it's that is that the one with the little zips in the side? Yeah, the jewel zips up the side. What was it called again? The Willlet. The Willlet boot. Yeah. Yeah. Um and and it literally the name came about because a builder came into my office to see my husband who's a plumber. Um, and he was waiting for him and I had the boot, my my prototype sitting on my desk and he goes, "Oh, this is a pretty cool looking boot." And I go, "Oh, yeah. I need to name it. What am I going to call it?" And his name was Tony Willlet. So, um, the builder. So, it became the Willlet boot. And he's so proud of it. I think all his family members own a pair or at least a few pairs. Um, but but that was that was that created my war chest actually of um of cash flow for my future. So when times dipped, I had that product. It incidentally was the first product I designed and someone was looking out for me that was separate from when I was with the boys that had helped me establish in China. So it was my first on my own product that just took off like a rocket. We just could not keep up with demand and we were filling containers with this incredible boot. It's still we still make it. Um what I I like to kind of call our brand like a journey on a bus, not very glamorous but or train or a jet or something. um where and you'll probably be the same where you've you've created this product that I call the Willlet boat and those early adapters have have hopped on the the train at that point and they've traveled with you the journey of the colors and the iterations and the perforations and the new floral leather that you've done it in and then they've gone actually it's 3 years now I want to hop off my bus um catch the next bus to New Market which might be our next product which is a I don't know the the stitched up soul which is a little bit of a like a a Chloe inspired sneaker that's been amazing, but there's still the people that have stayed on the train and they're still heading somewhere uh with the Willlet boot. So, I still keep making that product for those ladies. Um mostly in black with a white sole or or white with a white sole. Um not a lot of changes in the uh I might every now and again splash out and make a designer color in it of the season, but yeah, that's that product still keeps chugging along, keeps moving. So I do have I I believe they say in your design career as a a clothing designer, footwear designer, there are just moments if you can ever get that moment of having that one product that is just an absolute global hit. It's amazing. And I and I did have that and and looking back retrospectively, I should have actually just backed myself in that moment and ordered lots lots more to be made in production to really own the market. Because I couldn't supply enough, some other retailers would say to other suppliers, "Hey, this is amazing. This Minx product, maybe you could make it." So I then I then learned a lot about trying to guard my patch and protect my IP. Uh, and I tried and I tried and I tried, but every time I'd plug a hole with a legal letter, another hole would appear in the watering can. And until I lost control and then, you know, Australia copied the product and then America copied the product and then it was out and gone and and I it was Yeah, it was everybody's product. Um, you need to be flattered. I mean, look at you can get Gucci sunglasses for $10 in the market, you know, like you need to be okay with that. I mean, I can't even remember who I was doing a podcast with where they were talking about that whole ripoff scenario and how it was just kind of it actually assisted them um build their brand, you know, so that whole counterfeiting um piece was kind of important to them, which was really interesting. Um but yeah, so but also question around if you've fallen in love with the shoe as a woman, do you buy three or four or five pairs? You go and is that does that happen? Cuz we don't do that with dresses. We just buy the one, you know, we don't go and get the other color or the Yeah. Yeah. We do. What we What we do find is we might launch with a fashion color of a style and this is often my fault. So, I'll be all excited and I've launched it in burgundy because that's the color of the season and I might do a metallic and I've forgotten about black and I've forgotten about ivory and my ladies will very quickly tell me, "Hey, I love this product. I love this boot. I've got the burgundy. Can we can I I just want a black pair as well. I would wear a black pair way more. And so we then scale up in in color. Uh and it's really consumerdriven. Like I listen to my ladies. I listen to my retailers and I I want to make the product that they want me to that they want to wear. So um so yeah, it it definitely is a it's a flow on. I I wish that could be faster at times. Um the the delay is not so much manufacture, it's now shipping, filling and containers. So it's uh economical to bring. Yeah. Um Yeah. Well, interesting. We don't do black or white because our Yeah. We don't I mean, if we do if I do a black shirt or black dress and just won't sell. If I do white, it won't sell. So everything has to be floral. Everything has to be color. Um, you know, that's and it's, you know, knowing where my lane is and knowing where my knitting is and knowing that I'm fiercely proud of that and knowing that my demographic sits its heart is in the 50 plus. That's where it sits. Where do you Where's your sit? Um, I think it's probably um, if I'm realistic, kind of that 40s plus. Um, and again, like yourself, it's more about the attitude of the lady more than anything. They they get, they understand the brand. We did used to focus a lot on color and point of difference. I in recent years because of the economy we have we've we've slid back into a little bit of comfortable in terms of like having those you've got to have it in black, you've got to have it in ivory. Interestingly, we've brought on some really big new customers like we we just landed TVSN in Australia which is a big television online shopping network which is huge. Um and they want point of difference. They want color, they want uh pattern and things. So, that's been great for me because I know it's a safety net. I know that if I am brave enough to put those color combinations into my collection, I know there's a customer that's not only Minx, our brand, um, but there's also a retailer that will support that point of difference. Now, uh, where it was getting because we don't have stores, we we only have our own flagship store, uh, and an online store, which is is great. uh we still very much rely on the support of our retailers uh nationally, you know, to build that volume of sales to give to our factories. We we just don't have enough to go direct uh on our own, which means that I still need to provide that conservative basic. Yeah. Black for our general retailers throughout the country. Um yeah, so a question I should have asked you at the start, where did the name come from? Oh, thanks. So um also back at the start I said years ago we were really lucky to be a pet project uh of uh Sachi and Sachi. So in the late '9s Sachi and Sachi were all about uh their key accounts were Toyota cars uh BNZ Bank, National Bank, any kind of bank, insurance companies and their creative team. We were fortunate enough our accountant sister uh was on the creative team. It's all about who you know right sometimes. Um, so she was on her husband was in the in the lead creative team and he's like, "Oh, we just want to we just we cut our fees. We just want a really cool creative project." So the the process was quite interesting. We we took in all our beautiful colorful shoes that hadn't been photographed or anything. So they were just, you know, in a black box, like a big violin case, our sample case. Uh, here's our new collection that no one's seen. And here's who we are. This is my sister and I. this is our heritage and being brought up as as uh shoemakers children and um and this is what we've done. Um yeah, and they were like, "Okay, fine. Leave it with us. Give us 14 days. We'll have a brand name for you." Well, I think it was about day three, they phoned us really excited and oh, we've got 120 different brand names for you. And my sister and I were like, "Oh my gosh, how are we going to choose?" Like that sounds like insane. Absolutely insane. So, I don't know if you've ever been through a branding process like that, but but what they do is they sit you in the room. Well, well, they just sat with us in a room and they had like an A4 sheet of paper, just a white A4 sheet of paper and a and the same career font for each each name. And so, they just flip carded it. So, they so they were just flip carding. I think one of them was like tinfish or uh you know like just random yeah random soul sisters or something like that you know like just random names were kind of coming up and it got to I think only about the 12th one and this word minx came up and [snorts] it resonated particularly with myself because my stepfather always called me a little minx like I was that little kind of oh but we could do this or why don't we try that and it was my probably my personality and attitude about being a minxy about, oh, let's add a bit of this to our, you know, the insole. Maybe we could put a bit of color in there, even though it's a black school shoe. So, it was, yeah, it it just resonated instantly. And then, um, they took that and they they made created their own bespoke font for it and away we went. I do there there's a little tiny portion of me that that um is restricted by the brand name Minx because it it is now quite polarizing the actual name of it. So for example, I can't register my brand in China uh because it's classed as a you know a Minx could be a little bit of a a woman that works after after 9:00 at night type thing. So, um I just going [laughter] to say that it has connotations that are are not as PC anymore as as is the connotation of you know 20 plus 27 years ago basically. So, um there's part of me that goes, "Oh, yeah. If my girls were to take the brand on, would they take the brand on? Should they change that?" Um change the name. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think um at least you've got a salailable proposition in Minx. You're not trying to sell your name. Like for me, I don't have a salailable proposition as to many designers and that if I was to sell my name, I'd lose the ability to control it. Um and with all the social impact work that I do, I need my name. So very poor decision to to name a business after myself. But at least there's an independence. But you've still got your struggle there, too. what is PC and what is not these days. Yeah. Yeah. And um and also who is wanting to take on a footwear brand to their collection of of um of foot footwear product or offering out there as well. Like it's a it's a tough proposition. I think you know we we're as designers and and control our narrative with our design. If if you took me away from that picture, I I don't know. Like there's not enough meat in the sandwich to kind of pull someone in to train them up to be me in the business at the moment. So, I don't know in terms of like exit and and where does where does it all end up at the end of the day. It's still a bit of an unknown. There's still a lot I want to do. There's still a lot I need to do uh in my sector and um and for my ladies. Yeah. And it's still it's still fun. It is still fun. Yeah, that's important. I've got a couple of closing questions for you. So, I guess the first one is, what do you do in your spare time? What are the passion projects that aren't shoes? Do I have spare time? [laughter] Um, to be honest with you, with a 13-year-old and an 18year-old, um, both still at school, um, they keep me really, really busy. My my family is really important. I love art and I did last year create a small space in my um in my weeks to to take up painting uh which I thoroughly enjoy but I've since stopped that because the business has you know come back into busy phase again um yeah what I do in my spare time I've got a lifestyle property we've got cows um I'm actually although many people think I'm quite extroverted I am introverted in the sense that my I'm very private bit about my family and I love spending the time with my family and friends. Um, yeah. So, that's probably sounds a bit bad, doesn't it? No, it's it's not No, it doesn't sound bad. I love the art thing. I've recently put a small art studio in as well and sort of gone back to that whole 360 I started at art school, so art is my thing. I probably see myself more as an artist than a designer, but um, so are they similarities? Are they not one in the same? Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, they are. They are. So, it's all part of that creative pursuit that just wires you that way and and having that wonderful business sensibility has been super um important for both of us. Um yeah. Yeah. I think um one of the one of the most recent um excitements for me and it's now become it can become it's a bit of an addiction. So, I'm addicted to designing. So once I'm in that in that zone, I you know, I couldn't eat for a day or I'd have a million cups of teas in a day just while I'm designing. It's like a frenzy and and I love it. I wish I could just lock my whole life away and just do that. Not realistic at all. Um like the mad scientist a little bit, but I found the same joy, and this is probably quite weird for maybe for your listeners, but I found exactly the same joy in AI creation. So, um, you know, downloading the run runway design app and making my shoes come to life on a model. So, often I'm sure you see your gar, you know, when your garments are made, you see a certain kind of shoe or handbag or lipstick or earring back with your garments. I have the same thing. I see my shoe back with the garments. And so it's been really fun for me to apply um a makeover to a model [laughter] for for the entire look. Um it's it's been fun. It's been really really fun. So I have to be careful because it's I can just it just sucks my time just fiddling around um creating that. Yeah. No, I'm a like having photography is my thing at the moment, but having taught myself to work Photoshop, I now the print creation space and what I've been able to achieve in that space has been insane. And then if I'm sort of tweaking that in AI and saying, "Okay, I want to add this or I'm a big AI fan." Um, I don't even know if it's PC to kind of talk to that anymore. But, um, effectively, you do. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I just, you know, I think it's the sustainability of AI that's a bit tricky. So, we got to get a hand. We got to include that. Well, actually, yeah, absolutely. And there's a flip side, right? There's pros and cons to everything. I think when Gucci and Prada released their AI collection, um, it all of a sudden gave us authority uh or or permission, permission probably is a better word, to actually I mean, I went into the office in January and I said to the girls, I just really want to embrace AI. I think it it's it's exciting what it can do with our products. I don't want it to replace our photo shoots. I don't want it to replace anything. I want it to enhance the ability for a customer to visualize how they could see them. We can't afford to to do a million different photo shoots and a look in jeans for the same product, a look in a skirt for the same product. Um, and this, you know, is efficiency and it's helping our consumer, I think, visualize themsel in that product. And it's it's sust sustainable in the sense that it's we're not waiting, you know, spending a lot of money on creating these shoots that are that are almost obsolete the day after they've been done and produced. Yes, I agree with the amount of energy it takes to to burn away in the background to do that job. Um, but yeah. Oh, I mean honestly you're speaking to the converted, but I guess for me after doing a podcast with an AI expert yesterday, I've came away sort of thinking about the sustainability aspect of it and we didn't discuss that. We were both so highly excited in that space. But I went on to do my due diligence and then added a piece after to actually reflect on um the impact that it does have um in respect of it's not straightforward. So, but you're right. Um, it is here um and it is a way that we work forward and it is going to have to be embraced to remain relevant and just as you know that online platform was once there many many years ago and we're all sort of saying you know it's never going to it's never going to be you know people are always going to want to shop in shops. No one's going to shop online like that. You know people are always going to want to read a magazine you know I mean we're never going to go online for that sort of thing. You know we're always going to watch the 6:00 news. I mean, so all these things that we thought were going to be there forever, they changed. Yeah. And so midway through you gave some um you gave us some advice around women in business. But your parting kind of I guess piece of advice to any young um prospective shoe designer um in respect of someone wanting to get into your industry because I get approached by a lot of young people wanting to get into our industry and it's tough. It's really tough. So I think that would be a wonderful thing to hear from yourself as to what does that look like now if I really decide I would like to be in the business of creating gorgeous shoes. Uh I think it's a really good question that I probably don't have a a full handle on the answer. I I guess I've gone through the thought process with my daughters thinking is this a pipeline for them because they're so creative uh and would I want to send them in that direction? I think you have to be really motivated and driven. I think you have to understand first and foremost business uh before design. Um and and then uh if you have that creative side to you to make it work, I I think you need to be prepared to travel. Um you need to go to so so what is happening and what I'm seeing in China right now is what happened to us in New Zealand. So there are less Chinese people that want to work in production. Um they're pushing them into AI now because it's a sexy new industry. So where is that next um production uh country place platform or should we be 3D printing our shoes because it's a 3D product. So I think if you can if you can bring something unique and fresh uh to the way that you think about the industry and how you want to add to that uh its point of difference. I I think that that yes you could be really successful in this industry. It does need a shakeup. It does need um someone to come in and be that disruptor and and offer something uniquely different to the way business is being done in our space at the moment. And there's definitely room for that. Uh I would be I'm always open to mentoring anyone that wants to enter the industry. uh they just need to be prepared to hear the hard honest truth about how hard you need to work and how dedicated you need to be to understanding business first and foremost and then following in with your um your your dream your dream to to make it you will make it happen. There's definitely room there's definitely room for new design. Yeah. Awesome advice. I think you had even though you started by saying you didn't think you had the answer, I do think you have the answer. And I think the one salient point in that it is a lot of hard work. It does require extreme amounts of discipline and you do need that financial side of your brain fully in gear. You need to know about business and so probably a business degree before a design degree is well worth its um well worth the investment from you. But hey, thank you Cush. That's been awesome talking to you. I think in all the time that we've been I guess trading alongside each other in this country, we've really never made a connection as solid as this. So, it was just awesome for you to share so much around what has been a massive journey and for me to get that insight into all of those challenges that you've been able to um navigate. But thank you so much. Oh, thanks Anna. Amazing amazing opportunity. 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