window of wanda harland showing colourful clothingFull dis­clos­ure: the Wel­ling­tonista is all about nepot­ism. So we thought it was about jolly time we sat down (well, emailed) our Martha, who has been a very import­ant part of the ‘ista since like 2006 at least (although she is much less of a bad influ­ence on us now than she used to be), to find out about the latest incarn­a­tion of her won­der­ful store Wanda Har­land.
1. Who are you, and what is Wanda Har­land all about?

Wanda Har­land is my store and very much an expres­sion of things I love and desire! Over the years I’ve become more inter­ested in cloth­ing, I won’t say “fash­ion” because that implies some­thing fleet­ing, and part of my val­ues is only buy­ing things you’ll love and wear for years to come. This does­n’t mean cloth­ing can­’t be fun, but it should be excel­lent qual­ity and a great fit. Stock­ing eth­ic­al brands is import­ant to me.

2. When Wanda Har­land first opened… ten? years ago, it was very child-focused because of your print­ing label Baby­li­cious. What’s happened over the years?

The shop is almost 11 years old! You’re right, when we opened I had a whole­sale busi­ness mak­ing baby clothes. This was a reflec­tion of my life at the time, which was one sur­roun­ded by my own and my peer­’s babies. Over the years as my kids have grown my interest turned more to home­wares (reflect­ing my own renov­a­tion pro­jects tbh). Then we were approached by Kow­tow about stock­ing their range and a new interest in cloth­ing has grown ever since.

3. How’s the new loc­a­tion (on Wake­field Street oppos­ite the Town Hall) going? Are there dif­fer­ences between it and Petone (On Jack­son St next to Knobs & Knock­ers) in terms of what you’re stock­ing or your best sellers are?
shop as part of the street
The new loc­a­tion is fant­ast­ic, it’s so lively in the city with a con­stant stream of people in the area. I love the people watch­ing! The offer­ing between the two stores is slightly dif­fer­ent, ulti­mately the same “vibe” but in the city we’re cater­ing more to pro­fes­sion­al women and Petone has a slightly more cas­u­al vibe. It’s fun, we can play around with the style in each store. There are some brands we don’t carry in both stores too, which keeps each one unique and inter­est­ing.
4. What’s the most Wel­ling­tony thing that you’re stock­ing right now?
bright clothing
I’m really focussed on try­ing to sell as many loc­al brands as pos­sible, so while noth­ing screams out “Wel­ling­ton” with actu­al words we’re very proud to work with Wel­ling­ton design­ers includ­ing Kow­tow, Penny Foggo, Luc, Aida Maeby, Rachel Stich­bury jew­ellery, Twenty-Sev­en Names and many more.

5. Any plans to stock wider size ranges?

more clothing racks

Yes def­in­itely. Over the years we’ve gone from car­ry­ing a basic few sizes and now we stock 7 sizes in some ranges and this will grow over time.