Jessie Wong

And so we need to create something that's in a more technical, engineered, like hard wearing fabric that is a little bit less precious than maybe your leather goods, but sort of speaks the same language and does the same job.

And so we worked for three years to create

have a direct partnership with aquafil which are a milan-based company who produce econol which is a regenerated nylon they are a global project so the project here in te whanganui atata wellington is ghost divers new zealand they go into wellington harbour pull out all of the old plastic waste e-scooters all of this rubbish that gets thrown in the ocean um and you know the part that is the nylon six polymer gets sent back to aquafil

broken down into that polymer, remade into new nylon and the impact is like 90% less than any new nylon and it can be recycled infinitely.

So it is a genuine story around that product and I guess that's why we didn't just settle for any kind of fabric.

It took a long time but it instantly became quite a large percentage of our revenue.

I think it's all happened kind of one step at a time, right?

You know, you just sort of learn a new thing.

You push the envelope a little bit further.

I know that every time I'm feeling a little bit out of my comfort zone that to interpret that as, you know, that is you learning something new and kind of challenging yourself.

If you're feeling too comfy, it's probably not a good thing.

I mean, we just, you know, started making bags and then we got to a point where it wasn't going to be possible to make everything totally ourselves anymore.

I mean, I still have the calluses from, you know, those first designs.

You know, I remember there was two years that I was just doing commercial leasing for retail stores and learning a lot about that.

And then, you know, going offshore, going into the Australian market, it takes a long time to feel like

this is your place and people know you and you have a reputation and, you know, you're not sort of like cold calling anymore.

So everything just takes time.

So just kind of learn by doing really.

Yes, totally.

So, I mean, end of 2024, we bought on some capital into the business and that was really to help the growth in Australia.