Established: 2 years

Location: Wellington

Contact Name: Nat & Tom

Website: www.thatwasthen.co.nz

Business mission and vision:
Our business mission is to fill a void in New Zealand menswear. We wanted to offer greater opportunity for men to purchase beautiful garments – products that are exceptionally constructed, featuring hardwearing textural fabric, that will be instant classics and go to pieces time and time again. Anti-fast fashion, we instead advocate for quality over quantity – spend a little more on fewer items that will stay in your wardrobe, and out of the landfill, for years to come!

“We are a menswear store in Wellington, specialising in high quality garments handpicked from around the world, designed to stand the test of time. Alongside this, we also have a traditional barbershop offering full grooming services to the discerning gentlemen of Wellington!”

The majority of the clothing brands we carry aren’t available at many (if any) other brick & mortar stores in the country. We want to provide a space where people can take their time to see the designs, feel the fabrics, and try things on, discuss the brands ethos, where and how the clothes were made, and in turn allows us to create a connection with our customers – all these things that are lost in the world of online shopping!

Runner up in Capital Magazines “Best Of” competition.

As a barber by trade I was at the end of my time working for others and saw what we thought was a gap in the market to bring Japanese Denim and contemporary workwear fashion to New Zealand. What better way to ply my trade and indulge my love of good quality menswear than to combine them under one roof?!

We chose an incredibly challenging time to open – the midst of a pandemic, the emergence of a recession, coupled with some major changes not only in the Wellington CBD, but also in the structure of peoples daily work/home life balances. I think we are still navigating these changes both as a business, but also adjusting to new ways of life as a society. This created massive instability and unpredictability in the potential success of the business, and we have seen several both new and long-standing businesses that didn’t manage to succeed. The fact we have managed to stay open is something we are hugely proud of!

Please see above!

Any new business faces major challenges, and no path of growth is ever linear. Consistency of showing up, finding the small positives in each and every day is essential to moving forward and not giving up. Learning to see failures as lessons rather than regrets is such a major part of any development – without it I honestly don’t think growth is possible!

Managing to stay in business throughout the covid 19 response and the accompanying recession.

I am most proud of not only being able to introduce brands and labels I love to the general public, but being able to bring something completely unique to Wellington, and NZ. But mostly, we love the relationships, connection and sense of community that i have been able to form with like minded people in doing so. We feel this is especially valuable for men!

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We have just grown the Barbershop, and now have two chairs running regularly instore. It’s great to give more exposure to the store and greater flexibility to our clients.

Because we don’t yet have employees, other than ourselves and our new barber, we don’t have the opportunities for training, but look forward to this in the future. We recently had a training session for a new line of specialised haircare products we are excited to bring in store.

We have multiple google reviews and also reviews on our Fresha (barbershop page), and are constantly humbled by peoples lovely responses and feedback to what we do, and what we are offering.

The freedom of being your own boss – it’s not easy, but having the ability to make it work for our family is such a wonderful benefit. We have real pride in what we have achieved, and being a role model to our daughter to have the ability to create your own future is hugely important to us as parents.

We try and be as involved with local schools as much as we can. We have donated multiple times to both Island Bay School, as well as Te Aro School & Te Aro Preschool.

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