Fashioning the future: Nicola Willis calls for skills, innovation and scale
Sunday, 21 June 2026
Finance Minister Nicola Willis, a keen supporter of New Zealand fashion, told the Sunday Star‑Times she wears many local designers, including Helen Cherry, Sylvester, Maggie Marilyn, Juliette Hogan and Caitlin Crisp.
“I do love my New Zealand fashion, and I love New Zealand-made footwear, New Zealand-made suits, New Zealand-made blouses,” she said.
“Pieces designed here reflect something unique. They don't tend to follow just the trends of fast fashion, they tend to have a bit of a distinctive New Zealand feel to them, and they're products that stay in my wardrobe and, increasingly, as I've got older, it's upsetting when you're taking old clothes to the landfill because you know that that's a terrible waste,” Willis said.
She was becoming more mindful with age about choosing pieces that would look good not just this year but for several years to come, and that New Zealand fashion stood up well to that test.
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She was referring to the high‑value, exportable nature of local fashion as she urged the crowd at Fashion & Textiles New Zealand’s Threads of Tomorrow Summit in Auckland this week. She said she had championed new policies, including changes to Government procurement, to help give the industry a boost.
Contributing $7.8 billion to the economy and 1.9% to GDP, the fashion and textiles employed 76,000 workers - approximately 78% of them women - and was an important industry for the country, Willis told a crowd of about 220 growers, processors, manufacturers, designers and retailers.
The Government was invested in wanting to help the sector grow, and she believed “stronger domestic capability” could drive innovation and more skilled jobs.
But that’s the conundrum: the fashion industry has seen local manufacturing shrink over the years, with specialist skills such as machinists and textile workers leaving the sector.
Willis’ answer, in part at least, was the Government’s investment boost tax policy, which she said would “dramatically improve the tax treatment” of new assets, including machinery and equipment.
It meant “for a manufacturer considering new knitting technology, automation, processing capability, or plant upgrades, they could get a 20% tax credit on the cost of that capital investment”.
The Government was also considering ways to encourage more young people to gain the skills the industry needed, including through having textile technology as a school subject in secondary school curriculum.
“In a world that is increasingly focused on the origin of products, on the sustainability of products, New Zealand has an edge,” Willis told the conference.
“We already produce some of the best wool and fibres in the world, we have some of the most clever designers, and there is a real opportunity to connect that full supply chain and sell a story of difference, not just here at home, but to consumers the world over.
“That requires the ability to focus on stronger domestic capability, on innovation, on the skills needed for workers in the industry today, but also the workers of tomorrow, and to look closely at how we capture more value,” Willis said.
But a fragmented supply chain, skills shortages and uneven capability across the value chain — along with global uncertainty and rising costs — remained major challenges for the industry, and Willis said the Government had a role in helping businesses meet them.
“I believe New Zealand has a real competitive advantage in natural fibres, in advanced knitwear and manufacturing, specialist garment production, technical textiles, circular innovation, and stronger connections between fibre production, manufacturing, and design,” Willis said. “We are small, we are mighty.”
Wool was a case in point. New Zealand is the world's third-largest wool producer, accounting for about 9% of global output, yet around 80% still left the country in low-value form before higher-value processing and manufacturing occurred offshore.
Fine wool, although only around 10% of export volume, contributed to more than 30% of export value.
Willis said those numbers showed “the scale of the opportunity” if New Zealand was to move further up the value chain.
The future of the industry was not competing with the world on lowest cost mass production, but competing on quality, on innovation, sustainability, and on high-value niche manufacturing, she said.
“That is where this sector can thrive.”
Willis pointed to French luxury fashion brand Chanel’s recent investment into Lammermoor Station organic wool farm in Central Otago - recognition of the value and reputation of New Zealand's fine wool production.
There was an opportunity for local makers to work with international brands that could fully leverage the fibre’s reputation.
“Domestic manufacturers are already using around 15,000 tonnes of wool annually across products like yarn, carpet, furnishings, and insulation. Industry projections suggest that can more than double as new products and processing capabilities come online.”
Willis said there was rapidly growing demand for locally made products, and that the Free Trade Agreement with India could significantly boost the sector.
India currently takes more than 20% of wool fibre exports by volume, and that was expected to grow following the recently signed FTA.
“India, which we often associate with manufacturing fast fashion, on the other side has a market amongst its middle class consumers for more sophisticated products with a sustainable origin story. As demand grows, the opportunity for New Zealand is not simply exporting more broad fibre, but capturing more of the manufacturing, processing, design, and branding value here at home, and that's how New Zealand will build strong businesses, more jobs, a more resilient, higher value economy.”
Willis told The Post there was real potential for the industry to grow across the supply chain, which was why Government was committed to using New Zealand textiles, manufacturing, products, and innovation wherever possible.
“Sometimes it's winning one contract that makes a breakthrough difference for a firm.”
If the Government played “a leadership role” in choosing local - in the first instance - that would encourage others to do the same, she said.
“We're a country that has a constellation of trading arrangements around the world. We're connecting with more and more consumers everywhere from Europe through to India, and I'd love to see this industry grow.”
What industry says
Fashion & Textiles New Zealand chief executive Jacinta Fitzgerald agreed New Zealand had all the ingredients for a thriving industry - world-class natural fibres, strong design capability, and a reputation for integrity and innovation - but it needed to better collaborate with those across the supply chain to realise its full potential.
“The opportunity now is how we connect these strengths more effectively,” Fitzgerald said.
Fashion & Textiles New Zealand is preparing to release its manufacturing strategy and action plan in coming weeks. The summit was the first time all parts of the fashion and textiles sectors came together.
Panelist and Honest Wolf co-founder Sophie Hurley said she believed the industry’s future lay in stronger collaboration between farmers, wool suppliers and fashion brands.
Norsewear managing director Tim Deane said the technology available in garment manufacturing today meant physical labour was now a smaller component of the overall cost of production and believed that, coupled with demand from consumers, would result in “a resurgence in manufacturing” in this country.
“I think the future is very bright.”