Cervelt development 'no walk in park'

Douglas Creek founder Bert McGhee spent eight years perfecting the process of turning the fine down winter coat of the New Zealand red deer into a luxury textile fibre.

Tauranga-based Douglas Creek, the developer of world-first natural fibre Cervelt, was this month named as a finalist in the BNZ Bay of Plenty ExportNZ Awards. It was the latest of a number of significant achievements for company founder Bert McGhee, his team and backers in what has been a 12-year odyssey to bring a unique product to market.

"It wasn't a walk in the park," said Mr McGhee. "The problem when we started off was that it was impossible to get any advice in New Zealand, because nobody had ever tried to bring a fibre like ours into the market."

Douglas Creek spent eight years perfecting the process of turning the fine down winter coat of the New Zealand red deer into a luxury textile fibre (see sidebar), and has since sold the yarn to a number of luxury fashion houses, including Hermes and LVMH.

But, being innovative isn't enough, said Lionel Crawley, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise customer director for the North Island, who has followed the Douglas Creek story for many years.

"No matter what quality of innovation you've got, building a brand in that kind of market is such a massive challenge," said Mr Crawley.

One recent high profile example of Cervelt use was in what was hailed as the world's most expensive pair of socks, costing $1600 a pair, marketed by luxury shoemaker and accessories house Harrys of London as "the most exclusive sock in the world".

The socks were made by Italian company Depio from Cervelt yarn made in Tauranga.

In 2008, once the company had developed the yarn and proved to Italian fashion manufacturers that it could be successfully made into fabrics and garments, Douglas Creek began a series of market development strategies, including putting on fashion shows in Milan and Paris to demonstrate how Cervelt could be used.

"I would say that just about every top European fashion house has used Cervelt at some point and we're still selling yarn into that market," said Mr McGhee.

But the nature of the industry was that the top fashion houses regularly changed their lines, so that yarn sales into the market were not consistent.

"Douglas Creek has done an extraordinary job of developing really high-end contacts in the fashion markets," said Crawley. "And they've shown a huge amount of tenacity."

Mr McGhee said that Douglas Creek had now come full circle and was focusing on encouraging New Zealand designers and garment-makers to develop unique brands using Cervelt.

"We're now developing our own stuff and trying to get as much made here as we can," he said.

"New Zealand manufacturers are not set up to make jacket and dress fabrics. But they can make just about any kind of knitwear garments, shawls and scarves.

"It's been a long story and it's not finished yet. We're certainly going forward now. "