Our Story
our story
The Glowing Sky story began at the very edge of the human world on Rakiura / Stewart Island, New Zealand. No more houses, just forest and 3,000 kms of the mighty Southern Ocean between us and Antarctica.
We remain a family owned and run company specialising in fine Merino Wool clothing. All of our garments are hand made here in
New Zealand, and retail exclusively through our own shops and website.
Photo: The Gutter, Rakiura.
our foundations
We met right outside what is now our original retail outlet in the Islands only village of Oban (pop.350). I was working as a
Fisherman and Cath was ‘just visiting’ the furthest place on earth from her English home.
For the next 13 years we lived on Rakiura / Stewart Island raising two beautiful children and founding Glowing Sky Clothing.
Photo: View out front of The Original Glowing Sky Store
fishing to fashion
In 1997, we started hand printing T-shirts on the kitchen table of our tiny sea-side cottage. They proved so popular we moved to a bigger house and set up a printing studio and shop in our basement. Before long we gave up fishing, employed a Team, and were selling to shops all around N.Z.
In 2005 Cath and Dil and Glowing Sky moved 26km across Foveaux Strait for their kids education. And then...
Photo: View from room where we made our first garments
still keeping it local
In 2006 we started to ‘play around’ with fabrics made from our local
Southern Alps Merino Wool. There was such a huge instant demand that within a year we had to stop making cotton clothing altogether to focus 100% on Merino.
We decided to stop selling to other stores in order to keep our clothing exclusive to ourselves. Today our South Island based manufacturing team supply our Website, 6 retail stores and growing...