Behind every garment lies a largely hidden world of craftsmanship, labour, and meticulous decision-making — yet too often, its true value is lost in the number on a price tag.
A recent conversation with a friend highlighted this disconnect. Frustrated by her search for a wedding guest dress, she bemoaned, “It’s so hard to find a nice, locally designed dress for under $500.” Her words stuck with me. It’s a far too common sentiment, but it also raises a bigger question: What actually goes into the cost of a garment?
There’s a misconception that designer fashion is needlessly expensive — but the reality is far more nuanced. From the first sketch to the final stitch, a piece of clothing undergoes a complex process of design, sourcing, and craftsmanship. Beyond the garment itself, wages for machinists and retail staff, rent for workroom space, and marketing costs all contribute to the final price. Yet, locally designed garments are often measured against the prices of mass-produced clothing from brands such as Zara and H&M, without consideration for the differences in quality and production scale.
To understand the true cost of a garment, it’s important to hear directly from the designers who navigate these challenges every day. Rachel Easting and Anjali Burnett, the designers behind Wellington-based brand twenty-seven names, are committed to creating clothing that is exclusively made in New Zealand — a choice that, while aligned with their values, also comes with significant expenses.
“Making in New Zealand is expensive because we have a legal minimum wage, which ensures people are paid fairly for the work they do,” Easting says. “[But] for us it’s necessary to support New Zealand- made to keep the skills and ability for this creative industry to survive.”
So, what does New Zealand production actually involve? At twenty-seven names, Burnett and Easting work closely on the design process, conceptualising the silhouettes and themes they want to explore at the start of the season. When selecting fabrics, they either source surplus stock from New Zealand fabric merchants or develop in-house prints with creative collaborator Lily Paris West, as seen with the Olympia dress from their AW25 collection.
Once a design is finalised, they collaborate with Sue Bailey at Pattern Potentials in Morrinsville to create the pattern, which is then sent to Avenue Clothing in Auckland or Umsiko in Wellington for sewing and finishing. The collection is photographed for e-commerce and wholesale, before the duo embarks on sales trips around New Zealand to secure full-season orders from stockists and their retail stores.
From there, production begins, with the garments passing through Auckland-based cutters before being sent to contractor sewers for the initial first-off, followed by quality control, pressing, and final dispatch to retailers. “It takes a village,” says Easting. From fabric and trim suppliers to sewers, pressers, and the various teams involved at each stage, she estimates that over 50 people contribute to getting a single garment into the hands of consumers. “When you add up each person who has a hand in creating our garments, and accept that they each are employed and are paid fairly in New Zealand, it shows how the prices of our products reflect that work and care.”
The choice between local and offshore production is a pivotal challenge faced by New Zealand brands. Jacinta FitzGerald, chief executive of Mindful Fashion, says that while it does cost more to manufacture locally, there are many benefits. “We need to flip the conversation and look at the value we are creating locally, rather than the cost,” she says. Local production supports jobs and keeps revenue circulating within the economy. It also allows brands to be more agile, responding quickly to demand and reducing excess production.
However, local manufacturing faces growing obstacles, particularly in access to specialist machinery and skilled workers. “As more and more manufacturing moves offshore we are losing technical capability, local skills, and machinery and technology are not keeping up with what is happening globally in some areas,” says FitzGerald.
For designer Rachel Mills, she ensures that her eponymous label only produces styles that can be made in her Mount Eden workroom.
“There are certain things we’ll stay away from as we don’t have the specialist machinery,” Mills explains. The brand instead focuses on what’s possible with the equipment they have at their disposal, leaning on the skills of a small, talented team of machinists to produce elevated essentials, such as T-shirts, underwear, and swimwear, that can be feasibly made locally without compromising quality.
For small-scale designers, running a business means wearing multiple hats. A little known side of Mills’ business is that her Mount Eden workroom doesn’t just produce for her own brand — it also handles sampling and production work for other local designers.
“There’s so many things that I’ve had to learn from doing this,” Mills says. “I’m doing marketing, running photo shoots myself, learning how to send EDMs through Klaviyo, while still physically cutting, making, and often sampling garments myself.”
Pricing a garment is a delicate balancing act for smaller brands. “We have a formula that ensures our pricing covers everything needed to make a garment — including fabric, trims, and machinist time — as well as a percentage mark-up that covers all of our overheads,” explains Mills. “This accounts for running our retail store, paying rent for our workroom, producing photo shoots and managing the day-to-day operations of the business. Our pricing sits just above the typical wholesale rate, rather than following the traditional wholesale-to-retail mark-up, which effectively doubles the price again. This approach makes our wardrobe essentials more accessible in New Zealand, where the market for high-end designer fashion is relatively small.”
This challenge is shared by many independent designers, who must navigate the fine line between fair pricing, sustainable production, and keeping their business financially viable. After a decade working in textiles across New Zealand and Australia, designer Dominique Healy launched her label in 2017 with a focus on timeless, trans-seasonal pieces. Now based in Grey Lynn, Auckland, her design studio sits above her retail space, where select pieces are crafted in-house, while a local factory helps bring the rest to life.
Initially, Healy struggled to find the ideal pricing formula. “I spent years not charging what I should have, as I wanted my pieces to be affordable,” she explains. “But that meant I was stuck in a cycle of making everything myself and barely earning.”
Transitioning to factory production in recent years has brought greater stability, helping her manage stock levels and costs more effectively. However, hidden expenses remain, from soaring shipping costs and rent to covering staff wages and marketing. For Healy, pricing is about more than covering costs — it’s about valuing the work behind each piece and ensuring the future of local fashion. “The cost of a garment is just the beginning; there’s so much else going on behind the scenes that those funds support.”
Emily Miller-Sharma, general manager of Ruby, shares a similar sentiment. “Yes, New Zealand-designed, and in particular, New Zealand-made products may be more expensive, but that’s in part because we’re not making massive runs of product,” she says. “We’re really careful with our waste to keep costs down and to ensure we’re producing sustainably, but we’re also paying a whole lot of New Zealanders to do a job.”
This sits in stark contrast to fast fashion pricing. “I was on a panel with Kate Sylvester, and she said something that’s always stuck with me,” says Miller-Sharma. “She said: ‘The maths on a $5 T-shirt is mystifying. It just doesn’t make sense’. Simply buying T-shirting costs more than that per metre. So, in the fabric costs alone smaller brands are out of the game.”
However, she acknowledges there is a place for these garments, especially in our current recessionary environment. “At the end of the day, people still need clothes. So, there is a good case for making high-quality, low-price products, but this is only doable through volume; which is sadly not in the realm of possibility for most New Zealand brands.”
Beyond the final price tag, there’s a deeper conversation about the value placed on the New Zealand fashion industry. “This is an industry that’s built on the smell of an oily rag, yet people expect it to be so glamorous,” Mills says. “The garment workers in this industry are severely underpaid for the high level of skills they possess. They deserve a quality standard of living, so this all needs to be built into the cost of the garment.”
Ultimately, the price on a garment is not just a number; it is a reflection of the craftsmanship, the people, and the values that keep our local fashion industry alive and thriving.
Words by: Natalia Didovich
Imagery: Supplied
