Icebreaker - Pure Merino

Yesterday in the Icebreaker Portland office, the team celebrated the 1st Annual Icebreaker USA Agricultural & Pastoral Society Show.  It’s quite a big tradition in the Kiwi calendar year, and so being a New Zealand company it only seemed right that this ritual was installed on this side of the world.

It’s a day when “agricultural and pastoral interests are celebrated and promoted”, and there are many fun activities on tap for all to enjoy (American’s – it’s sort of like a County Fair).  And our show didn’t fall short of craziness – there was animal shearing (although with stuffed not live animals); wood chopping; sheep hearding; gumboot throwing; flower arranging; fruit & vege people-creation – competitions galore.

An awesome day was had and the team can’t wait for next year’s event!

We’re making all sorts of wonderful new friends here in Manhattan at the new Icebreaker Soho TouchLab store, including a woman who is an Icebreaker addict through and through.

She attends film school here in New York, and sent us this video with a note:

“I learned a great deal from making this video and hugely enjoyed the opportunity to talk with Gretchen — who’s an inspiration — and spend lots of time in the store! As I’ve said, I adore Icebreaker products and New Zealand. And New York. So this was a fun chance to combine the three. The footage at the beginning was from my bike trip in New Zealand at the beginning of the year.”

We hope you’ll flock to this is much as we did.

WATCH: New (York) Zealand – A Video Love Letter

Our new SoHo TouchLab store hosted New York City’s Waitangi Day (New Zealand’s national holiday) celebration earlier this month.Organized by Kea New Zealand, the number of Kiwis in the TouchLab far outweighed the number of Americans. It was so interesting to see how both our US customers and our own local staff were fascinated by New Zealand culture. Two highlights were definitely the NZ national anthem (especially the Maori version), and all partaking in a good ol’ mince and cheese pie.

With over a 100 New Zealanders in one room you would need a degree in math to count the number of times ‘bro’ and ‘sweet as’ were thrown around. However, the most interesting ruling of the night must have been one US staff member’s assertion that “the more shit Kiwis give you, the more they like you”. This was especially true with guest speaker, New Zealand’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations Jim McLay’s speech, as full of sentiment and informing as it was, not passing by without a jab at the Aussies and a joke about sheep.

With discounted Icebreaker merchandise, staff were kept running all night and the floor was suitably bare the next morning. It was also a pleasant surprise that with such a high volume of beer, wine and New Zealanders in one room, the only damage were three garments that happened upon some red wine.

Thanks to all who turned up or helped out and made the night such a great success! Though there were a few weary souls at work the next morning, we all had a great time and look forward to doing it all again next year.

- Gretchen Low, Sales Associate Icebreaker TouchLab SoHo NYC