ABOUT
Crushes is a concept store that celebrates conscious consumerism by selling quality wearable vintage clothing, alongside functional lifestyle goods from New Zealand makers and designers, that won’t break your piggybank.
The sunny and welcoming Karangahape Road store is a beautiful space where the product’s stories and values are as appealing as the goods themselves. Whether it is a coveted vintage piece or a product made by a local artist or Crushes’ own in-house brand, the goods at Crushes won’t cost or harm the earth. Recognising that slow is the new fast, Sarah and Rose’s ultimate goal is to handpick and create products that can be gifted, used and cherished for years, without ending up in a landfill.
ORIGINS
If you’re looking for some sort of sappy love story you’re probably going to find it here. Girl meets girl, platonic friendship turns into a double-breasted business partnership, and the rest is history.
With a bit of spare time and lot of clothing overflow, Sarah Firmston and Rose Hope found themselves in the perfect position to start something. The dream was to create some sort of craft market, stocking handcrafted goods and vintage clothing, which would be open all week. So they did it.
In 2011 they opened a small store, then called The Bread and Butter Letter, on New North Road. Two years on, Sarah and Rose decided to go bigger and better, and moved into a larger space on Karangahape Road.
Inspired to design and manufacture affordable New Zealand made goods, they started their own in-house lifestyle label, Crushes. In no time at all the love child grew into a full sized adult; Crushes became a major part of the store’s identity - so much so, they decided to change the store’s name to Crushes in 2018.
Crushes has grown to be a platform for ethical purchasing and a tool for self expression. Sarah and Rose want it to be the home for conscious consumerism. A place where ethical and sustainable is practised and promoted.
VALUES
It is our joy to present independent and new voices, whether they are starting out on their journey, doing it as a side hustle, or doing it as a ‘labour of love’’. Crushes loves to get behind new businesses and occasionally gets the opportunity to participate in forming decisions by guiding and educating them for a retail environment with the goal that they start and continue to be a sustainable and financially healthy business. And sometimes even getting to tailor products specifically for our Karangahape customers
There is so much waste in retail. Excessive packaging, polluting manufacturing, unsold stock, etc. We are proud to promote vintage clothing and homeware as a possibly solution to the pressure fast fashion is putting on earths resources. We also are proud to source everyday lifestyle goods that are re-usable like our stainless steel straws. And we are proud to have suppliers who re-think their packagings end of life and making positive solutions to change.
Whether it is raw, vegan or from the earth, we love selling and promoting natural materials. We think the quality looks, feels and operates better. The world is mass manufacturing synthetic and throwaway items, but we are desiring a return to the simplicities of life. The beauty of nature and craftsmanship.
We are proud to sell and promote several brands that have a socially conscious business model. That is, their profits give back to people in need. Our boss Sarah in fact has her own range of goods specifically made to profit a whole bunch of charities. These are the good folk, and they are the ones we want to promote, and what we know our customers love to get behind.
We are in an age where we don’t know where our goods have come from, nor who or what made them.The rareness of handmade goods is what is attracting so many of us back to the art form. As well as that we are craving the intentionality behind what we consume. It explains why hearing a makers story can make you love an item even more. And it explains the immense satisfaction we get when we finish a project, or mend something broken, or gift something handmade instead of store bought.