The heartwarming photo won fans around the world. Photo / Instagram
The heartwarming photo won fans around the world. Photo / Instagram
A socially conscious New Zealand knitting group has been flooded with orders after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex shared a pic of baby Archie wearing one of their hats.
Make Give Live is a community-based enterprise that donates one hat for every one they sell.
One of their Cocobearhats was gifted to the royal couple for Archie when they toured NZ last year.
Claire Conza, who co-founded Make Give Live with business partner Becky Smith, said they had been overwhelmed with orders and had sold out of the style of beanie that Archie wore.
"It is just really hard to come to grips that it's real because you could never dream it up."
"As exciting as it was, at the time it was a bit like, 'That's amazing, that's our beanie' but no one really knew it was our beanie."
But by the early hours of January 2, the royals' fans tracked down that it was a Make Give Live beanie and suddenly the Auckland business' site was swamped with orders, mostly from the US.
Before 8am, they'd sold out of the style Archie wore, after getting multiple orders a second, and made thousands of dollars.
They've now opened pre-orders for the sold-out styles and are quickly working to source enough wool to fill the orders and resume making them from tomorrow.
Conza said she had "almost forgotten" about the hat, which was gifted to the then-pregnant Duchess during her tour.
They'd also worked out that the hat Archie was given would have also been too small by the time the picture was taken, so someone had ordered him two larger ones.
Make Give Live, which was founded in 2016 in Whangaparaoa, runs community knitting groups around the country and now wholesales its hats to retail stories while still operating as a sustainable social enterprise.
Its website says the group acts "as a catalyst for connection and kindness in our communities".
The Cocobear hat, which has now sold out. Photo / Supplied
In the caption to their original post, the Duke and Duchess wrote: "2019 in review. Wishing you all a very Happy New Year and thanking you all for your continued support!
"We've loved meeting so many of you from around the world and can't wait to meet many more of you next year. We hope 2020 brings each of you health and continued happiness. - The Duke and Duchess of Sussex."
