Our story
A passion for fashion.
A woman, More than 25 years with you.
THE BEGINNING
Auckland, 1980s
From a young age, Isla Bennett drew dresses in the margins of her school notebooks.
While her friends played during recess, she watched the women walk along Gran Vía and dreamed of the day her designs would adorn someone.
She studied design, traveled to trade fairs in Milan and Paris, and worked for years in small neighborhood workshops, learning to sew by hand, to understand fabrics, and to respect the craft. Fashion was never a business for her—it was a way of caring for people.
SPRING 1999
The day we opened the doors
A small shop in the heart of Auckland.
Freshly painted walls, empty clothes racks waiting, a cash register borrowed from a friend.
That April, Isla Bennett turned the key for the first time and hung the sign above the door: Isla Bennett — Fashion to Live By .
Not many people came the first day. But the woman who came in at five in the afternoon and came out wearing a raw linen dress, unknowingly wrote the first line of this story.
2024
25th Anniversary
A quarter of a century. A quarter of a century. We wrote it twice because we still can't believe it.
We gathered you all in the shop with champagne and gave each of you a white rose with your name handwritten on it.
Some of you cried. We did too.
OUR WAY OF DOING THINGS
Curation, not collection
Every garment that entered our store first passed through Isla Bennett hands.
Every fabric, every stitch, every button. We never sold what was fashionable.
We sold what we knew would last—in your wardrobe and in your memory.