Shop Chic, Made-To-Order Wardrobe Staples at Auckland’s New Rachel Mills Store

Since she took over and reinvigorated a floundering Auckland garment manufacturing business in 2019, designer and pattern maker Rachel Mills has grown a steady stream of loyal customers for the made-to-order wardrobe essentials she creates under her eponymous in-house label.

After it’s pre-ordered online, every single Rachel Mills piece is cut, sewn, pressed, packed and shipped from the Mount Eden workroom – using responsibly sourced fabrics such as organic cotton and merino, and deadstock material.

Mills and her team began offering “open showrooms”, or try-on sessions, via appointment at the workroom about a year ago, but she wanted to make it even easier to see and feel Rachel Mills pieces in person – which led to the opening of her first store in Grey Lynn.

“We were getting more and more requests for open showrooms”, she tells Broadsheet, “so I decided it was time to commit.”

Located in the Grey Lynn shops among a bunch of other independent businesses, including Mina, Florets and Wise Boys, the store is a summer pop-up at this stage (with scope to extend, all things going well). After 18 months of searching, no other spot felt right until now.

While the look and feel is that of a nice fashion boutique, it’s a slightly different retail format than usual. Mills’s bodysuits, tops, dresses, trousers and swimwear are all hanging up for you to try on, but the majority of the pieces are samples – meaning you then pre-order in the store for delivery to you a week later.

“We see pre-ordering as a more sustainable business model from multiple angles, so offering retail alongside this seemed like a no-brainer,” says Mills. “For one, it means there is no overproduction happening, as we only make what is ordered. Secondly, it means we don’t have money tied up in excess stock that we are then having to discount at the end of a season, to make way for new stock.”

Continuing to offer pre-orders, even in a bricks-and-mortar shop, means the workroom can keep on making its pieces locally at a reasonable price. “With such a short lead time, it’s not too different to regular retail,” says Mills.

The boutique space itself is a long, wooden-floored room with clothing racks hugging the walls on either side, and large, curtained-off changing rooms. “One of the biggest things for me was turning the space into something that felt comfortable and welcoming. As we are right on a main road, and sell mostly swimwear and intimates, I wanted to create a space that felt private,” says Mills. The storefront has also been sectioned off with long, draping pieces of dark grey material, and the fitting room curtains have become a feature.

“I knew the fitting room curtains needed to be both weighty and tall, in order to achieve privacy and comfort. We landed a beautiful vintage upholstery fabric that was actually manufactured in New Zealand, so ties into our story really nicely.”

Rachel Mills
602 Great North Road, Grey Lynn, Auckland

Hours
Wed to Sat 10am–4pm

(09) 630 5071

rachelmills.co.nz
@ rachel__mills