Celebrating 17 Years

An occasion to celebrate

On Thursday 10th of November, we’re celebrating 17 years of Wallace Cotton. From small beginnings all those years ago, we're proud that the same family values we started our business with are still at the heart of everything we do. We love making every day more beautiful for our customers in New Zealand and across the world, and have no plans to change that.

We’re taking time to reflect on where we started, what we’ve achieved, where we’re headed and acknowledging the many people who got us here.

DISCOVER OUR STORY

Where it all began

After making a duvet cover as a gift for a friend that was so well received, Bill and Paula Wallace realised there was an opportunity to create beautiful bed linen from quality cotton for New Zealand homes. With varied but complementary business experience between them, they had the perfect skill set to establish a bed linen company. Bill is a qualified engineer with a business management background and Paula has always loved and worked with textiles and design.

So in late 2005, supported by friends and family Bill and Paula launched Wallace Cotton.

"We wanted to create a brand with a unique design personality, tailored to the way we live here in the antipodes and we're delighted to find that our style and design resonated with lots of like-minded passionate people!" Paula Wallace, Director.

The first Wallace Cotton premises in Birkenhead included a small retail store, warehouse, offices, and served as an impromptu daycare for the littles ones of our hardworking staff. Many team members have been with us since the beginning, occupying a range of roles and forming the base of our close-knit internal culture.

What we’ve achieved

From our small beginnings in 2005 with a handful of family members as our ‘staff’ in our Birkenhead location, we now currently employ 33 retail team members across our eight stores and 27 people in our head office and warehouse teams. Our head office has moved twice since our days in Birkenhead as we continue to grow, firstly to Apollo Drive in 2013 and then to Parkway Drive in 2021.

From 2006 to 2012 we opened new retail stores in Newmarket, Takapuna and Ponsonby in Auckland and a store in Wellington. We continued our retail growth with new stores in Cambridge, Napier, Christchurch and Northwest Mall in Auckland between 2013 and 2021. And after rapid international growth online, we opened a Wallace Cotton UK retail store in Battersea, London in 2017 and launched a UK online store.

2022 has been a busy year too! In March we teamed up with fellow kiwi company Blunt Umbrellas to create our Full Bloom Blunt Umbrella featuring one of our most-loved designs. Our Takapuna store moved to a brand new site after 10 years at it’s previous location. We saw the launch of our 13th collaboration with Ruby Seeto and Starship Children’s Hospital in which we’ve raised over $670,000 together since 2009. We were featured on The Block NZ for their 2022 Redemption season – we loved seeing how the teams styled pieces from our collections in their homes and had fun helping the couples shop at our Rosedale store.

DISCOVER NEW IN

Our values and our people

We’re lucky to be surrounded by an incredibly passionate team. We love working together to create beautiful designs and deliver exceptional customer service. Our corporate values demonstrate our collaborative approach which is key to the success of Wallace Cotton.

Caring – we care about our customers, our people and our communities.
Original – exclusive designs created to inspire and delight.
Teamwork – we are one team, we achieve success through collaboration, support and accountability. Thorough – we have a total commitment to quality and attention to detail.
Openness + sharing – we are the Wallace Cotton family; we communicate with honesty and respect. Natural – we focus on products derived from nature, naturally better for people and the planet.

Through everything we’ve experienced during the past 17 years, our values have remained constant which is a testament to our team. From the warehouse, design and production to marketing and our retail stores, we’re grateful for our talented people.

"Bill’s been an amazing force in our business with a steady hand at the wheel, driving the growth of Wallace Cotton. He’s created an environment where continuous improvement is a given, and the changes that come with a growing business and team are well planned so that everyone’s on board for the ride. Customer service and quality have been top priorities from day 1, and continue to be the reasons that our loyal customers return." - Paula Wallace, Director

What’s next for Wallace Cotton?

Our aim is to make every day more beautiful for our customers with thoughtfully designed bed linen, homeware, sleepwear and clothing. We love what we do and look forward to continuing to deliver pieces that inspire beautiful living, that bring joy every time they’re used and that are made to last.

"With our energetic team, we plan to keep growing our audience locally and internationally. We are constantly working on developing new ranges and products to suit our audience, while building on our environmental sustainable efforts to minimise waste throughout the business." Paula Wallace, Director.

Thank you as always for your continued support of our Kiwi business.