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PRESS » Tue 15 Jul 2008 Keeping Mama Love here at home
Two local women are keeping mummies yummy during pregnancy with stylish and comfortable maternity wear.
Shona Hockings from Paremata and Angela Brown from Aotea took ownership of online company Mama Love recently, and are working hard to keep production local.
Already running for about three years, Angela says when she bought Mama Love she "inherited" a lot of existing stock and new items were being made in Auckland.
The two decided to move production to Porirua for logistical reasons, and employed the help of Stitch in Elsdon to create pieces for them.
"It's definitely for us" says Angela about keeping everything local. "We can just pop down the road and pick up whatever's ready."
Neither of the women had run a business before but were both looking for another challenge as their children got older.
Angela spent 20 years working in the clothing industry in England, before moving to New Zealand two years ago.
She and her family came for a change of lifestyle, and noticed an interesting opportunity when she saw Mama Love was for sale.
She took some samples of the clothes to Paremata Kindregarten, where both her and Shona's children were going at the time, and showed some of the mums.
"The mothers tried on some garments and looked gorgeous," Angela says.
Shona offered to help Angela out with the business and over the past three months the pair have had a very hands on learning experience about running a small business.
"For me it's been a huge learning curve and Angela has a wealth of knowledge," Shona says.
With Angela's fashion experience and Shona's accounting knowledge, plus a few small business management courses, Mama Love keeps growing, and there are big plans for the company's future.
Currently available online and at maternity stockists in main centres, they hope to get the brand out to the provinces.
The goal of keeping everything New Zealand made will remain, a point of difference from their local competitors, who only offer imported maternity wear.
"There is a big push for Kiwi-made which is great and we've had good feedback from that," says Shona.
They have been working on introducing new styles and fabrics for the website and last Thurday held their first sale evening, where customers could come and see their clothes before buying them.
If it proved successful, they hoped to hold a similar event every three months. They also plan to have a stall at the Women's Lifestyle Expo in August.
Shona says they have received feedback from mums saying they would wear the garments pregnant or not.
"The key thing we're going for is to enhance people's pregnancies, to be stylish, have flattering cuts-and something that feels good next to the skin."
For more information, including stockists, visit www.mamlove.co.nz.
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