About


Mavis & Osborn is a family homewares studio run by Tamzin Hawkins and Jonti Griffin. All of our products are designed and made with care in Nelson.

The majority of our sewing is done by two amazing women, Tina and Miyuki, who bring a level of craft and quality to our products that we’re all proud of.

We choose to keep our manufacturing in Aotearoa because we love the process of making things with our own hands, and we love to help support not just our local community but our wider community too.

We interact with over 150 different businesses including Cutters, Presses, Fuser, Hardware suppliers, Thread suppliers, Fabric suppliers, Die makers, Dyers, Patternmakers, Digitisers, Marker makers, Trims and button suppliers, Cotton and webbings, Leather suppliers, and Couriers. So many of these businesses rely on our support and add so much pleasure and laughter to our days.

 

Sustainability


We are often challenged by the idea of making new products in a world that is already filled with too many things, so it’s important to us that we constantly question our place in the industry. Mavis & Osborn focuses on the entire lifecycle of a product, and actively supports and practices the following:


 

Made to order

  • Only supplying demand

  • Better yields

  • Less waste

  • No deadstock


Product Stewardship

  • Bring your product back and have it repaired with us

  • If it’s looking tired and it just needs a refresh, we can over-dye it

  • At the end of the product lifecycle, we have a ‘buy back’ option in exchange for a discounted rate off your next purchase. They are then deconstructed and made into a completely new product. If this isn’t possible (threadbare) they are shredded and recycled into felted material or composted


Materials

  • Working with local fabric suppliers

  • Predominantly natural fibers (cotton, wool, linen, leather, recycled rubber)

  • NZ made fabrics when possible

  • 100% no polyester

  • Working with the Sustainable Business Network to develop systems capable of recycling our products back to their raw materials


Makers

  • Self employed, independent machinists working from our studio and sprinkled throughout Aotearoa. Most of them are women who have left factory jobs, who set their own rates and have flexible working hours


Supporting local businesses

  • Cutters, Presses, Fuser, Hardware suppliers, Thread suppliers, Fabric suppliers, Die makers, Dyers, Pattern makers, Digitisers, Marker makers, Trims and button suppliers, Cotton and webbings, Leather suppliers, Couriers


Dying

  • We support the last dye house in Aotearoa, using GOTS approved dyes


Waste Minimisation

  • Design for waste minimisation, fabric sizes dictating design (not the other way around)

  • Our cutters separate paper and fabric offcuts, larger fabric pieces are saved for other uses and the paper is recycled or composted

  • Any small, unusable fabric scraps are shredded and used in a range of felted products, recycled, or composted


Sea Freight

  • All material bought in from overseas are shipped on sea rather than air, which is slower, but uses less emissions than air freight


Packaging

  • Recycled or compostable packaging, which may have some drawings from our two kids on them:) Not the prettiest but we often get multiple uses out of both our paper packaging and plastic fabric role packing