Rickie Dee from Superette and Emma Winter from La Tribe are back again with another collaboration! With a combination of La Tribe’s signature sheepskin and quintessential Superette bold colours of Lilac, Bubblegum Pink, and Soft Grey, these slippers are the perfect mix of cool and comfort. A ‘Kelly Green’ pool slide joins the mix too, bringing a pop of colour to your summer outfits.
We chat to Rickie and Emma about sustainable fashion, their style inspiration and icons, what their favourite local businesses are to support and, of course, their collaboration.
Hayley: Sustainability is a bit of a buzzword at the moment – how has the fashion landscape changed for you in terms of creating clothing and creating collaborations?
Rickie: Sustainability is such a big buzzword in the industry, and we are constantly evaluating what we are doing and seeing where we can make a difference in our processes along the way. We work with each of our store managers and their team to identify the key changes and factors that they can do within their teams to lead us to a better sustainable journey.
It is something we are constantly working on, traditionally speaking the fashion industry doesn’t have a great rep. But we’ve started to make changes, with our in-house brands we are using recycled and organic cotton, it’s definitely a process, and is something we can constantly improve and do better on.
Emma: From our point of view we have looked at things like packaging, making sure that we can reduce the amount of plastic we are using in terms of how we box our products. With us, it’s supply and demand too, trying to make for the demand of the market rather than overproducing which is a big problem in the industry.
Hayley: It’s always exciting to see businesses and brands just doing the best that they can. It’s not the easiest thing in the world and all those little steps add up to those big things.
Emma: I think from our point of view, making features on our products that are repairable [is so important], so you can get a bit more longevity out of your shoes. If the sole is repairable or the zip is replaceable, it keeps the longevity in the product – so you don’t have to replace it frequently.
Hayley: Do you find that customers are gravitating towards more sustainable things on your websites or is it still making its way into the psyche of the consumer?
Rickie: The customer is equally as savvy, they really do appreciate it if the process [of making the clothes] is explained. I think they appreciate things that are organic or recycled and I think that needs to continue to happen for those changes to be made by the industry.
Emma: More people are asking questions through social media. Like, where is your product made? How is the product produced? Which we are always so transparent about. People are definitely researching more.
Hayley: Obviously, supporting local is more important than ever with everything that is going on. Who are your fave brands to support?
Emma: Obviously, my favourite is Superette, I was looking back at how long I’ve been shopping with you [Rickie]… 19 years! I’ve been there since the beginning. It’s one of my favourite places to shop because Rikkie’s curated brands and introducing homewares has made it become a one-stop-shop. For me, I love supporting her in the apparel space but I love supporting local in terms of food as well.
Rickie: That industry has done it so hard so it’s really important to support them. We were ordering takeaways every night when we could, just to show support and because it was so delicious. I think they are going to be pretty busy when they reopen.
Emma: Can’t wait to throw my support around hospo!
Hayley: How have you found lockdown in terms of your communities?
Rickie: Yeah, it’s obviously been a challenging time, the longest lockdown that we’ve had. Managing the store teams – half of our stores were trading, like the ones in Christchurch and Welly – but keeping Auckland stores busy and managing through click and collect.
The good thing is, this time around we have done it before, so we kinda knew a little bit more of what we were doing. Yesterday [reopening of retail in Auckland] came as a great relief, just to have our teams back working, doors open and customers in-store.
Emma: Well, I had a baby in lockdown, so I navigated through that. That was a big challenge but from a business point of view, it was just making sure the team felt supported and safe within their jobs and mental health which was a big thing the second time around. People were feeling a lot more uncertainty, it dragged on a long time so it was just trying to support everybody.
Rickie: It was super important to check in with the team individually as they all manage it differently. Some love it, some hate it, so it’s important to keep on checking in.
Hayley: With Christmas coming you are probably all under the pump getting ready for the rush?
Rickie: It sort of felt like it was the Christmas rush yesterday [when Auckland retail reopened] There were a lot of eager people touching and feeling products. But we are in full Christmas mode, it’s exciting! I love this time of year.
Emma: Me too! I love that Christmas vibe in the air, and it’s great to see everyone back open to trade. Fashion is very seasonal and fashion comes and goes so you’ve got this small window to make hay while the sun shines.
Hayley: Who are your fashion icons or inspirations?
Rickie: I don’t really have certain people that I really go “oooh I wanna be like that”. It’s more about fashion inspiration as a whole as opposed to being one single person. I think the fashion industry is obviously very creative and we are constantly drawing inspiration whether that is on Instagram (or it used to be traveling and magazines.) I don’t really have specific people that I aspire to on a daily basis.
Emma: I usually get the odd girl crush on Instagram – you know, the Parisian women in their white shirts and denim – little snippets of things you see on Instagram. I fall in love with the idea of how those women operate their lives and the ease of how they put themselves together. Travel was a big place I got my inspiration from, and not being able to do that, I’m back reaching for books again.
Rikkie: And just good ol fashioned magazines! Just sitting down and having a good flick.
Hayley: What is your go-to fail-safe outfit to put on that makes you feel amazing?
Rickie: I kinda went through quite a few different stages and journeys. Right at the start, it was tracksuit mode but as the weeks went on I needed to get dressed up and into normal work clothes so I felt like I was doing something more than just sitting at home. Now we are back in the office so I am just wearing normal clothes which feels quite nice.
Emma: I am honestly such a simple dresser, I reach for the baggy white shirt, I couldn’t wear jeans, so I reached for black tights with the zips up the side. In terms of my shoes, I’ve gone into designing slip-ons, that you can scuff around in and then throw at the back door. It’s a slipper but it’s not. But there is something in the air where people almost want to get dressed up again… they want to put on a sexy pair of heels and go out and dance again… that makes you feel a bit free.
Emma: You gotta have a good pair of slippers regardless, whether or not you’re in lockdown.
Hayley: What is your favourite colour from the collab collection?
Rickie: Mine are the pink ones! In saying that we have also collaborated on the green rubber pool slide, which is that colour [Kelly Green] for me at the moment that I’m loving. There’s a lot of pop colours around this season, so both of those colours are super exciting.
Emma: I love that Kelly Green, it’s so crisp, that green. I think bright colours lift people’s moods which is important at the moment, especially if they are shopping and they see them.
Rickie: You can even see in-store, there’s a lot of bright colours, they were just smiling on the racks. It was so cool.
Hayley: How did you come up with this particular collaboration?
Rickie: We have done many collaborations over the years and often we will do one at Christmas, because here at Superette we collab with our top brands and do something a little fun and exciting that’s limited and special. I think that this Christmas we’ve gone quite “poppy” with our concept, it’s all about checkers, bright colours and that’s exactly what the slipper collab is, it’s a little bit of fun – nothing too serious – and it’s very timely with the situation we are in.
Emma: I’m hoping with the rubber pool slides if you can’t whip over to Aussie or do what you’d normally do with travelling, you might be at a campsite and the pool slides are the perfect accessory for that – to have a shower, or go to the beach, or the lakes – when you’re holidaying in New Zealand. It’s so cool because when we first started La Tribe we went to Rikkie and said “Here’s a boot, would you like to collab with us?” and she said, “why don’t you put a buckle on that?” She took the buckle off one boot and put it on another boot and she said “let’s just collab that”.
Quite often we will show her the range and she’ll change things around and it’s so cool because it gives us ideas and means we are able to collab, and it is a really genuine collabing experience.
Rickie: It’s a fun journey as well, we are creating something for our customers that is a little bit special, and along the way we are developing something outside the range that we want too!
Emma: And we are so open to that. It’s nice when Ricks has an input because she’s got so much experience and knows her customers really well. So when she suggests something it’s like okay, lets do it!
Hayley: Tell me a little more about the ‘Everybody Eats’ charity and how it came to be involved in this collab?
Rickie: Everybody Eats is a New Zealand based charity, we partnered with them last Christmas. They are basically feeding Kiwi’s in need, which is awesome. Every year we do gift-wrapping in store which everybody loves because it’s a little bit special and in beautiful packaging. Last year we had been to one of the Everybody Eats restaurants where anybody can go, whether you are paying for the meal or you’re someone who can’t pay for a meal, and a lot of the Kiwi suppliers donate to those restaurants and then they cook up the food. We got inspired after going to the restaurant and thought what they were doing was awesome so that’s where we came up with the concept of integrating into our gift- wrapping last year. It went really well last year, we raised over $10,000 for Everybody Eats, and we are partnering with them again this year!