We were thrilled to be featured in the December 2023 Kia Ora magazine. If you have flown with Air New Zealand you will be familiar with their inflight magazine Kia Ora. The mag serves both to inform and entertain, showcasing the best of New Zealand travel, accommodation, dining and culture while celebrating the country's entrepreneurs and innovators.
Holly was interviewed for their "Business Briefs" pages by journalist Matt Philp. We chatted about how our small Kiwi business started and our inspiration for our flagship product the L'Ombra Sun Tent. Read the full text below.
The response from their customers was amazing and helped sell out our stock well before Christmas. Luckily we had stock arriving in January so we were able to offer pre-sales for those not wanting to miss out on their favourite stripe! 100% of our yellow stripe - "Lemoncello" sold out well before new stock arrived.
Thanks Kia Ora Magazine for the feature - we feel honoured to be included.
Full Text:
Kia Ora Magazine, December 2023, Page 88.
"Gimme shelter
Three years ago, avid op-shopper Holly Tong was having a rummage in the tool section of a Gisborne second-hand store when something striped and canvas caught her eye. It was an old beach tent, a little torn and worn but otherwise a perfect shelter for her family's beach outings over the following summers. Even better, the $10 treasure birthed a business, Sun People Co, with Tong taking a cue from its vintage styling to design her own beach shelter, which she has christened L'Ombra Sun Tent.
The name is a nod to another source of inspiration, summer on the Italian coast, where your beach turf is traditionally staked out by a striped umbrella. The styling is pure nostalgia, but the cotton canvas tent is made with a contemporary eye on sustainability, using fast-growing wood for poles and a minimum-waste approach to production. As for the uses you can put it to, it's anything and everything, but definitely nothing strenuous. "In Italy they call it 'Il dolce far niente', or the sweetness of doing nothing," she says. "I love that." sunpeopleco.com"