An interesting package arrived a little while back at Made From New Zealand HQ. Inside was a climbing sock, which had been sent by Sir Edmund Hillary as his contribution to the Made From New Zealand project. “This might be useful to you” said the message. “Maybe you could use it for your tee-shirt.”
Too right we could. We contacted some people in the textiles industry, and asked them how we could get a little piece of Sir Ed in every Made From New Zealand teeshirt. “It’s technically impossible” said one. “There’s no woolspinners left in New Zealand” said another. Then we called Robert Larsen, technical guru at New Zealand spinning experts Woolyarns. “Sure, no problem” said Robert. “We’d be glad to help. We’ll spin it into a merino yarn, and you can stitch a piece into every shirt.”
So inside the back of each shirt is a little piece of sock spun together with New Zealand’s finest merino
In the space of an hour, we had moved from the ‘impossible’ to the ‘no problem’, we had achieved what they said couldn’t be done. Kind of like Sir Ed himself, although more in a fashion detailing sense than in a climbing Mount Everest sense. Regardless, thanks to Sir Ed, the Made From New Zealand teeshirt is a teeshirt like no other.
As a token of our gratitude to Sir Ed, we are donating $5.00 from every shirt sold to the Himalayan Trust, the charity Sir Ed established to assist the Sherpas of Nepal.
”It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves”
Sir Edmund Hillary, 20 July 1922 – 11 January 2008.