From a little room on the Hokianga Harbour
100% Grunt Hokianga was on the rise, the views on our You Tube platform was gaining traction(500,000 views was pretty up there back in 2013)and everyone was interested in what we were up to.
We were staying in Opononi at that time and started to think what we could do to keep the momentum up so it was decided we would start. selling some merchandise to help us pay our bills. We shopped around looking for T Shirt printing businesses that would help us but everywhere was too expensive where it wasnt affordable for our little family, then Jacqui said "why dont we just buy our own printing gear and do it ourselves?". Bingo!!!! I had the degree in Multimedia production and she had the brains to pull it all together. This resulted in a trip to Auckland to buy everything we needed to set our own shop up.
The Hustle and Grind
We set up all our gear in the little guest room and got straight into it brainstorming different designs to sell eventually coming up with a custom hoodie where our customers could put there hometown on the bottom, these were to become our highest selling product but with just 2 of us doing all the work it became too much to handle. I remember one day I was printing hard out and got hungry so I went and made me some noodles for lunch, I sat back in the room eating my noodles when I thought to myself " faaar im like one of those chinese sweatshop workers, sitting here eating noodles and printing hoodies hahahaha".
Our nieces Chejaan and Tyla would come stay with us during the school holidays so I would hire them to come work with us to make them some pocket money, we would spend hours weeding the prints out and Jacqui would get them to be our models for photos.
On the weekends we would go to the local Hokianga pig hunting competitions and set our shop up selling DVDs and Hoodies sell a few products and get our name out there, the nieces would love it because they knew it was payday haha and all the locals loved what we were doing and supported us anyway they could.It was a good feeling seeing the smiles on everyones faces wearing our own designed hoodies and T Shirts.
Exposure
A highlight of our printing mahi from our little room was designing and printing outside of 100% Grunt - festival logos, crossfit groups, local whanau and international rugby superstars!
We were ask to design a shirt for the Woodman whanau who were going overseas to support Portia Woodman at the Olympics!! in their design they wanted to include Taiamai Rugby Club and Portia so we came up with Porshe logo to represent her speed and nickname, and the Taiamai colours Red and Black. I'm quite proud of that design and the whanau loved the final product!
Rebranding
We moved South and continued to make and sell hoodies when we could, we were at a rebuilding stage of our lives so with full time work and 2 kids later our printing business took a backseat to a normal working family life and South Island adventures.
We rebranded a couple of times also outsourcing the work to different companies, a big thankyou goes out Steve from Illicit Clothing who help me design a new shirt that kept us up to date with the latest fashion streetwear.
Back in the Game
So with our shop in Digitees doing its thing we didnt really have to do much over the years and I had sort of forgotten about selling merchandise every now then people would buy a hoodie and we would make our cut as long as we advertised our shop then it would generate income.
But then something happened that sparked the flame back up, a video came out that featured one of our T Shirts in our own backyard!!!!
Waima Girl is song by Shane Walker which is filmed on my own whenua in Waima, Hokianga the birth place of 100% Grunt Hokianga.
My Niece Simeon Warmington was part of the video and had worn one of my shirts for it. She messaged me up and said "Uncle I wore your shirt and Shane Walker wants one" after the video had been released my phone nearly blew up with messages asking where they can buy one. So thankyou to Shane Walker and Simi for lighting the fire again.
2025 Edition
For the last 4 days i haven't left my Computer putting in the mahi to bring a product to todays market, writing this blog has been cool to reminise the printing and design journey we have come on as 100% Grunt Hokianga to 100% Grunt Aotearoa, after 12 years in the game its time to release the next chapter..........
