MINA

The Mina studio store is tucked away in the Grey Lynn shops in Auckland. From here we operate as a small team and every single person who purchases directly from Mina, I am part of that process. I am very aware this may not last forever so for right now I treasure this opportunity to connect with our customers.

When sourcing our fabrics, we use a few local fabric wholesalers here in Auckland where we ensure our fabrics are natural. Most of our fabrics are ‘deadstock’. Deadstock meaning somewhere in the world an international fashion house produced a fabric in bulk and the leftover one hundred or so metres becomes ‘deadstock’. As we are a young brand and our runs are small we are lucky to be able to use fabric that has already been produced. For you, it means you are one of a small number to wear that garment.

With only two sets of hands, we outsource many of our samples to our lovely friend Phylly in Dannemora, Auckland. Phylly has a world of knowledge of the fashion industry and has taught both myself and Mum so much in the 1 year of knowing her.

Having studied in Wellington I didn’t have a lot of contacts starting the brand but we have been very lucky to have been passed on to great people in this industry, another one of them being our cutters in Otahuhu. Tony and his team lay our fabrics and patterns and cut all of our garment pieces ready for production.

The last part of our Mina family is our small team of sewers in Howick. We are very lucky to be working with Mark and his ladies as our production runs are small, so are often turned away by production factories. They are responsible for the long-lasting construction of every piece of clothing that we make.

Click here to find MINA at independent stores near you.