Our Auckland excursion
Having our Honest Wolf flagship store in Hunterville comes with a bunch of perks. There’s plenty of parking, you’ll never see a traffic light, and we’ve got a ridiculously oversized coffee machine. But for some weird reason, our online customers don’t exactly live around the corner.
While we’re well known for our luggage and accessories, our first passion has always been the wool our pieces are made from. When it comes to talking about our products, we love to educate whoever will listen about our ewes, the land they graze and how we make sure we aren’t taking more than we give.
There is only so much you can explain in an email or Instagram post. Which is why we’re big fans of talking about our pieces in person. So for a few weeks in November, we opened a shop in Britomart to let city dwellers come and meet our Honest Wolves, live in the fur.
And we’re pretty stoked with how it all turned out.
After Tetris-ing the entire range into our trusty horse float, we kicked off a 6 hour journey to the big city. 500kms of highways and countless strange looks from passers-by finally lead us to the heart of Auckland’s CBD.
A solid all-nighter moving display shelves back and forth helped us create a space we thought looked the part. Our temporary home away from home was right in the middle of the Britomart hustle and bustle.
As the new kids on the block, we wanted to make a good first impression. So, Sam, Annabelle and the little ones were tasked with handing out leaflets which got a steady stream of curious shoppers through the door.
It didn’t take long to realise we weren’t in Hunterville anymore. Customers would usually spend 20-odd minutes looking around our shop down south, but Auckland is clearly set to another speed.
Between language barriers with international tourists and busy business people, we quickly learnt how to summarise our range, materials and backstory into a 30 second monologue.
Between language barriers with international tourists and busy business people, we quickly learnt how to summarise our range, materials and backstory into a 30 second monologue.
Over the few weeks we were around, we managed to re-home countless Honest Wolves, had a bunch of return customers and got the opportunity to educate a whole lot of people about the benefits of buying sustainably sourced Papanui Estate Wool.
While our venture was short lived, we’re hoping we can stick around a little longer next time. And once we’ve found a substantial grazing meadow in the city, we may even bring along a few of our all-star ewes for a meet and greet in-store.
If you weren't able to pop in, never fear, our entire range is available below. Hopefully we'll see you next time.
Cheers for coming by, Auckland.
Cheers for coming by, Auckland.