It’s two weeks out from NZ Fashion Week when I catch up with Rachel Easting and Anjali Burnett at their Twenty-Seven Names Wellington workroom / HQ.
Sun pours through the windows, Ghuznee St’s café chatter rising faintly from below, and Rachel has bolts of beautiful floral silk spread out on the cutting table.
“Do you mind if I keep cutting while we talk?” asks Rachel as she skilfully separates the florals into perfect squares for scarves waiting to be hemmed.
There are two scarf designs. Forget-me-nots on navy; and a perfectly symmetrical tangle of wildflowers against a backdrop of cream with pops of pink, red, blue green and green.
The duo is working against the clock in the countdown to NZ Fashion Week (NZFW). Rachel has already cut out six looks that they’re adding last minute to their NZFW lineup – though these scarves are not part of the new collection. It just makes business sense to send the scarves to their Tauranga-based manufacturer on the same courier.
Adding six completely new looks to their autumn/winter 2027 collection at this late stage is doable because Twenty-Seven Names is still staunchly 100 per cent made in New Zealand and on this occasion, that has worked in their favour.
“And because Rachel is the nicest person in the industry these [types of favours) are the things that are afforded to us,” adds Anjali.
Rachel laughs when I ask if they’ve ever been tempted to take production offshore like so many other brands. “I’m not very easily tempted,” she says. “We absolutely have decided not to make offshore, and I think we’ve consciously decided not to try and be bigger than we can manage.”
The biggest conscious decisions they’ve made over the years have been to not pursue growth in a way that is also detrimental to their lifestyle, Anjali explains. “And being a sustainable business, not just choosing sustainable fabrics but making our business work for what our capacity is.”
The duo, who’ve been best friends since age nine when they met at Karori Normal Primary School, haven’t showed at NZFW since 2018, so why now, especially when times are so tough in retail. Twenty-Seven Names has also been affected, retrenching in 2025 with the closure of their two Auckland stores.
“We’ve definitely battened down the hatches to stay afloat,” says Rachel. “We do the jobs of seven people in any normal company. We do have that ethos that we can only do so much, and we just have to be really careful and not be extravagant. When we started the business [20 years ago] we were of that ilk and maybe it’s more of a similar time to that now. We’ve definitely downscaled and now we’re able to breathe a little.”
One of the label’s many clever and thought-provoking slogan T-shirts modelled here by Ngahuia Williams for Twenty-Seven Names at Common Material, Wellington.
Despite times currently being grim in retail the pair remain optimistic. “So often we’re like, we should be so depressed right now because of this or that, and we’re like, ‘can’t!’ Don’t have the time! You just have to keep going,” laughs Rachel. “And I really value that, because I feel at least the two of us are in this together, and you’re like, ‘ah, this is so hard, but we’ll just get on with it, and it will be fine’.”
And that includes a commitment to continuing to create and one of the reasons they’re showing at NZFW this year.
“Just because the world is in a shit storm doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be people that want to make something nice and do something good for enjoyment and for the pleasure of being creative,” says Rachel.
Twenty-Seven Names 20 year retrospective styled by Dan Ahwa for Common Material, City Gallery, Wellington
One reason they’ve been absent from the NZFW schedule for many years has been the reality of raising families alongside their business – their first baby. Anjali is mum of three – ages five, eight and 11, and Rachel two – ages six and nine.
Now that the kids are school age, they’re in a better place “to squeeze it in”. They also want to support the kaupapa of the people working hard to lift the profile of the industry and New Zealand cities and “take the power back” by creating events and in-person moments for NZFW in Auckland and more recently Common Material in Wellington, which was spearheaded by Jessie Wong of Yu Mei. “It’s something we really want to celebrate and work with,” says Anjali.
Behind the scenes of their show which was part of Common Material and City Gallery, Wellington.
Working with longtime friend, stylist Dan Ahwa, for Common Material – a Twenty-Seven Names 20 year retrospective – was a joyful experience as well as a gauge of how the friends and business partners now measure success.
“We turned this whole studio into racks of clothing from 2006 to now and had this magical day where we were all basically crying because we were like, ‘this is so fun we get to do this’ and enjoying those moments and celebrating those bits because there’s a lot of other admin that comes with it,” says Anjali.
She adds that success is “not beating yourself up, it’s having fun in the moments you can and enjoying the people [they] work with. “Having those relationships are really special and we get to share it together and it feels like a real celebration.”
Behind the scenes of their show which was part of Common Material and City Gallery, Wellington.
Both Anjali, 43, and Rachel, 42, admit that they are both a lot more chill than they used to be considering they are, in their own words, “chronic over preparers” and “over communicators”. “I think being two middle children has affected us quite a lot in a way. We’re always trying to prove we deserve to be here,” says Anjali. “Now we’re a bit more ‘we can just turn up on the day’, having done this for 20 years.”
They continue to be inspired and uplifted by the people who wear their clothes and have evolved to offer sizes up to 20. “It’s insane that the standard earlier wasn’t to do that,” says Rachel. “We have a great loyal customer following in those sizes who we want to deliver for and it’s really nice to be able to do that.”
They’ve also built a life for themselves for which they feel extremely lucky and grateful.
“We feel lucky we have made it this far and that we still love working together and care about what we’re doing,” says Anjali. “It’s a dream for a couple of girls to get to have done this.”
