“Coloured shoes will never work in New Zealand”…one bit of advice that was quickly ditched by sisters Angela and Cushla Buswell when they launched their Minx brand eight years ago. Their customers literally voted with their feet, and their designs are still bold and bright - and now available in Greytown.
“Our concept for Minx has always been ‘fun, feminine and funky’,” says Angela, who opened the new shop in October. “From the start, we refused to sample black shoes and we met a lot of resistance from retailers because of that. But our own research showed that people did want colour.”
Not that black has been dismissed completely. One of Minx’s most popular styles is a wedge heeled summer shoe and sandal. It comes in black, as well as red, lime, and bright purple. In fact, if you are a confirmed ‘flats’ wearer, this shoe might just convince you to try heels: “This style is extremely comfortable because there is a lot of sole on the ground,” says Angela. Comfort is another big part of the Minx brand. Designed for New Zealand women, the range climbs to size 46, and customers include teenagers right through to grandmothers, she says.
Recently, the Minx range has expanded from almost exclusively ‘flats’ to heels and wedge heels, right up to the ultra high and very foxy ‘Vice’. Perhaps it’s not surprising that some of the shoes conjure up images of 1950s style icon Betty Page, and fun 1970s trends. “We grew up with shoes all around us,” says Angela, whose stepfather owned a shoe factory in Waikanae, which the sisters bought as their first Minx base in 1998.
Angela, who studied shoe design and technology in Leicester for two years, initially designed the shoes and ran the factory. The sisters recently split the company, and Cushla now designs and owns the brand. Angela is an independent retailer using the Minx name at the thriving Otaki shop and now at Greytown.
She is excited about the new location: “Both Greytown and Otaki are ‘main street’ shops, and I think we’re seeing a swing away from shopping at big malls, back to ‘boutique’ style shopping.”
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