Green Business: Conscious Cloth

Miranda Brown. Photo / Sally Tagg.

Miranda Brown's sustainable fashion collection is already available at high-end boutiques across New Zealand and Australia, as well as one store in San Francisco.

But the Westmere-based clothing designer is planning to take her brand - Miranda Brown Conscious Cloth - fully global this year with the launch of her e-commerce website.

"[E-commerce] is a really good way of going global without having to step outside my front door," said Brown. "We are very excited about the global possibility there."

Brown's customers will soon be able to purchase her products through the website from the comfort of their own homes around the world.

She started her brand, which includes home and baby wear lines as well as her fashion collection, six years ago.

Brown said she started her brand on her own but immediate growth saw her quickly hiring staff.

She now utilises a team of up to 20 contractors for sewing, cutting, screen-printing and marketing, as well as two part-time staff members working on accounts and production management.

Building a sustainable fashion brand had required the use of low toxicity dyes, managing effluent, and efficiently using fabric, said Brown.

"We want to have the lowest carbon footprint possible, so when we make our choices around design and manufacturing we want them to be efficient."

She said sourcing sustainable textiles was one of the major challenges of running a green clothing brand.

Textiles such as merino wool from New Zealand and organic cotton sourced from Africa were used in her products.

But one of her suppliers had stopped supplying organic cotton this year because of a lack of demand for the product, she said.

Getting hold of enough capital to travel overseas and market her products was another challenge, she added.

"I do need to travel and meet people in my field and New Zealand is a long way from anywhere."

She said her motivation for getting into sustainable business came from nature.

"To be honest, I was born this way," she said. "I never tried to get into sustainable business."

She had carved out a niche for her brand over the years, she said, although some competition existed in the sustainable clothing market - namely from Untouched World.

"There are a few of us in this space but I don't see them as competitors - I see them as collaborators."

Business had been tough through the recession because of a general downturn in the retail stores she supplied, said Brown.

But she added that her business had stayed profitable through the dark months of the economic downturn, and the future looked positive.

As well as the e-commerce website, she is planning to continue supplying retail stores around the world, with an expansion into the UK and other parts of Europe on the cards.

Brown's e-commerce website is set to be launched in March this year.