The three of us started Halfpast in December 2005 when a good (and very successful) friend of ours asked us one of the most important questions we’d ever been asked; “What are you doing with your lives?” We didn't really have an answer for him, no good answers anyway. We knew we wanted to do something different and exciting, but we weren't really sure what to do. Being the entrepreneurial types, we knew we had a bit of thinking to do and on the car ride home, we did just that. We thought about our passions, what we all love to do with our time, where we wanted to be and what we wanted out of life. We all had a passion for all things extreme, as well as a love for fashion, hence Halfpast Streetwear was born!
We didn’t have a clue where to start, but we all shared a collective dream of wanting to create something special, something we knew other people would want to be a part of as well, and so with that our creativity kicked in. We drew for hours and before we knew it, we had designed our first range, which consisted of a few T-shirts and a couple of Hoodies. We all pulled together our collective savings (which was only a few hundred bucks) and we saw all of our creativity and hard works materialize into our first garments.
To begin with, we sold our first range mostly to friends and family, which was extremely well received, but we were determined to push on. With our second range, we managed to break into a few of the local streetwear stores, by our 3rd the total reached seven. Now we are in 30 stores. Our 5th line we got our first south island stores. Chillies in Timaru, Vibe in Oamaru and Uproar in Invercargill were among them.
During the build up to the snow season in 2006, Snowplanet would be our spot on the last Thursday of every month to watch the Slopestyle competitions. It was there we met the very talented Cal Runnerstrum, who is one of the most naturally gifted skiers we’d ever seen, and the great James Hamilton, who is now one of the highest ranked snowboarders in the world! They would be the first to join our snow crew and have since been joined by several other riders who can be found here (see our crew page)
In the winter of 06, we were introduced to one of the best local bands on the rock scene, Stylus, who were the first band we sponsored. With their help, we saw the first Halfpast garment make it onto the small screen in their music video for “I was alone until tonight” of their 2nd Album “Gain Control”. We also helped them look their best in a number of other vids, including “Home” and “Sign of the times”
Later in 06 saw us sponsoring another amazing New Zealand rock band These Four Walls, who absolutely blew us away when we heard their track “Walk Away”. We were lucky enough to go on tour with them to Waihi, where again we were amazed and blown away by their incredible energy and stage presence. We also did our best to make the boys look fantastic in their Music videos for “Walk Away”, “Under the Shadows” and their latest vid “Fly Home”.
Feb 2007 saw us putting on our own event as part of Orientation week at Massey University in Albany called the Halfpast Street Rail Series 07. We managed to get four truckloads of snow dumped on campus, where we built our own snow park and had some of the countries top skiers and snowboarders shredding it up! We also setup a stage and had some of Auckland’s premier rock bands play (the likes of The Tutts, Stylus, and These Four Walls), and we even managed to get some awesome exposure through Juice TV! The day was an awesome success and one of the best events Massey had ever had during orientation week.
Winter 08 saw the release of our first ever specifically produced garments. Which as you can imagine it was extremely exciting to be finally on a level playing field with all the other brands out there. It was just what the people wanted too, new garments and a new way at looking at streetwear in NZ. The imported Hoodiedresses were an instant hit with the ever changing female clothing scene and on the guys side we ventured into some very funky and hard wearing brushed cotton shorts.
In September 08, we participated in a charity event called AdiCouture. Organised by Kids Can, Several of New Zealand’s top designers and Streetwear companies were invited to create their own unique spin on the Classic Adidas look. Our outfit, as well as our model Shortland Street’s Will Hall, helped to raise a grand total of almost $7000 towards the Kids Can charity, the third most raised for the evening.
At the end of 2008, we decided it was time to hold our own event, which became the Halfpast Big Air 08. If you were there, you would have seen the Snowplanet café and viewing area packed to capacity with young and old alike, all there to support 20 of the best Skiers and Boarders this country has to offer as they took on the massive 45ft jump we had built. Ultimately the night was a huge success, due the talents of all of our riders, the Bands; Solomon and These Four Walls, and the massive support crowd who came.
Roll on 2009, which saw a lot of growth for us. Our winter 09 range saw a continuation of our produced garments, except this time they were made in NZ. We started the company in the hopes of giving back to the local community, both in a business and moral sense, so producing our own Kiwi made garments meant we were doing just that. Shorts, Skirts, Hoodiedresses and Jackets, which we designed in such a way represented who we are not just as a brand, but also as an idea and a culture. These were received extremely well by the current stockists, and also helped us break into other areas of the country. Sexy Hoodiedresses coupled with full-body Tshirt prints were a huge hit and very popular with the stores.
Kids Can Stand Tall selected us to be amongst several New Zealand fashion labels and designers to be selected to design a range of Jandles for the charity. This project was nationwide, with exposure in the New Zealand Herald, NZ Woman’s Weekly and also in every No. 1 Shoe Warehouse across the country. There was also a TV ad campaign that played nationwide, giving us a massive amount of exposure and a lot of great feedback from the general public.
Summer 09 was another big step in the right direction. What we looked at as our “transitional” range, to take us from where we had been, doing cool Kiwi prints, to where we are going, developing a never seen before way of producing streetwear. It was critical to keep the right balance of old and new, hence the way we really freshened up the “Kiwi” designs with new colours whilst continuing down the path of BIG and BOLD stand out prints. But what was to come next winter would change everything about streetwear in NZ and possibly even the world…
In just four short (but very exciting) years, Halfpast has become more than just an idea, it has evolved into its own culture that people from all over can appreciate and be a part of. From the music and extreme sports scenes, to everyday streetwear, people all over the country (and even some abroad!) enjoy and feel good about wearing our threads. It’s all about the journey and living your life the way you want to. That’s what we try to communicate with our clothing. There’s more to life than just looking forward to 9 - 5 work days, a 2 day weekend and 4 weeks annual leave per year. As our friend said to us “You’ve got one life, make the most of it by doing something worthwhile.
