Your Business: Sheer tenacity keeps family-run hosier NZ made

Alistair Thorpe says customers are 50/50 split on supporting locally made products and going for the cheapest option. Photo / Supplied

Hosiery shoppers at David Jones and Myer probably don't know they are buying from a Gisborne company in New Zealand when they buy their Columbine tights.

In a market where hosiery is dominated by Chinese-manufactured products, it's a good thing they like this niche player.

It is partly thanks to its strong Australian business that Columbine Industries is the sole surviving New Zealand hosiery manufacturer.

Columbine was set up 60 years ago by the three Thorpe bothers, Alan, George and Jack. In the early post-war days, they were making nylon stockings.

The Thorpes, who were relatively well travelled, named the company Columbine after an Italian pantomime ballerina. They spent six months overseas every year looking for new technology and styling ideas.

They chose Gisborne to base the company because of the climate. It was dry and the humidity has to be low for the yarns, says Alan's son, Alistair Thorpe, managing director of the private family company today.

A fire in the factory premises in 1962 led to the brothers updating their machinery with imported Lonati equipment from Italy.

This gave them a head start in transitioning from manufacturing old-style suspender stockings and introducing the new pantyhose style to New Zealand in the mid-60s.

Today, Columbine produces adult and children's hosiery, socks, Secrets hosiery and socks and Harlequin men's socks.

Its top seller is Columbine winter weight opaques.

Thorpe was 24 when he joined the business in 1977. At that time, he says there were eight pantyhose manufacturers in New Zealand, companies like Lane Walker Rudkin, Prestige and Bonds.

Columbine's successful entree into the Australian market in 1990 has undoubtedly helped its survival. It entered riding on the coat tails of Bendon which was launching the Elle Macpherson lingerie brand that year.

Murray Rae, a senior Bendon executive, expertly "coerced and bullied" the retailers in Australia, says Thorpe. "He opened the door for other manufacturers."

These days the Australian market represents around 50 per cent of its business.

With a staff of 90 - when the work was more manual, it was 180 - Columbine has just gone through a rebranding with the brand consultancy Dow Design, to ensure it remains competitive.

"For us he was our dream client," says Dow Design's creative director Donna McCort. "At the first presentation we had a number of options and he went for the most daring one."

The rebranding is being well received by New Zealand retailers though it is early days, says Thorpe. Its retail customers in New Zealand include Farmers Trading Company, Smith & Caughey, Kirkcaldie & Stains, Ballantyne's and Postie Plus. Columbine manufactures a number of private label lines for retailers too.

Do people care if it's New Zealand-made? "It's a 50/50 call whether people support New Zealand or buy the cheapest," says Thorpe.

Although the managing director says he has no succession plan, Thorpe's son Michael, a commerce graduate with outside business experience, is now working with him in the company, in charge of production.

Thorpe keeps up the family tradition for travel, to stay ahead of trends.

"We do travel. Most of our innovation is through the yarns. We are working with yarn suppliers in Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

"We have had a pretty intensive capital investment programme. We believe some of our stylings and manufacturing techniques are world class," he says.