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Martina Blanchard, left, and Sunny Wehrle moved with their families from Muriwai to Queenstown to set up freshly launched concept store SLOW.
Earlier this year friends Martina Blanchard, 38, and Sunny Wehrle, 40, moved with their families from Muriwai to Queenstown to set up freshly launched concept store SLOW, a multi-dimensional retail and cafe space with a focus on sustainability, authenticity and community.
Sunny: We’re across the road from the lake, which is super nice. It’s also a really nice environment for the store to be in – people are relaxed down here, there’s a little bit of traffic now but there’s not that ‘CBD’ feeling – people walking around in suits and everyone looking stressed… So it’s the perfect space to encompass what we’re doing. It’s a one-way road at the moment, but soon it’s going to get cobblestoned and filled in and will just be for pedestrians, which will be great as then we can put tables out.
The idea for SLOW came about in a number of ways. Martina wanted to do a homeware store, with some things that she personally hadn’t been able to get in New Zealand – that sounds pretty cliche, because that’s what every brand says! But essentially, we realised the things we would buy ourselves are the things we want to sell, and it lead onto the whole ethos of SLOW, which is ethical, sustainable, ‘buy well, buy once’ and also to bring that transaction with customers coming into the store and spending time there, and really being able to aesthetically visualise and see things in a home setting.
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The initial inspiration for SLOW was to sell product that owners Martina Blanchard and Sunny Wehrle hadn’t been able to get elsewhere in New Zealand.
Martina: And also the idea of sharing space with your community and customers getting brand exclusivity. You walk in and you can feel it, because it’s very custom and bespoke, and it’s different.
Sunny: As with our overall SLOW ethos, our cafe menu is mostly created from wholesome and plant-based ingredients. We both have a dairy-free approach to coffee drinking – our favourite milk alternative that still makes for a good creamy foam is a good quality oat milk.
Martina: For me coffee is savoured, drunk slowly and enjoyed socially. I prefer a coffee that has its ‘bean’ taste pronounced over that of a milk. My favourite is a macchiato as its taste is all about the coffee flavour. We have a professional coffee machine at home (single arm) as I love the ritual of making my first coffee of the day the good way.
Sunny and I met at the playground in Muriwai Beach, where we both lived prior to moving to Queenstown. We discovered we have a similar views and passions regarding slow living principles inclusive of fashion, design and food.
Starting a business together has been a dream come true – we complement each other with our knowledge and life/business experiences beautifully, across the fields of social science academia, art and design, retail, accounting, logistics and hospitality.
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Sunny Wehrle, left, considers gardening her favourite form of relaxation, while Martina Blanchard is a big yoga fan.
Sunny: Martina had been venturing down to Queenstown and had decided that was where she wanted to move the family to. Also both our children were at the age where we weren’t breastfeeding etc, so we felt like it was time to start a creative outlet. Martina moved down in February and I moved in mid-September. Queenstown is awesome. Love it. It’s fabulous actually.
Martina: [The Queenstown location] is good for the store too – sometimes it would be hard to justify what we’re doing amongst all the busyness and unsustainability of the city. In Queenstown you’ve got your ecotourism, there’s lots of aspects of sustainability on all the levels of businesses, so I think it just fits so well.
Sunny: We don’t work on Sundays. We get up at the crack of dawn and go to the markets or go bike riding… Before the mountain closed we were taking the kids up to Cardrona. It’s definitely ‘just get outside and do something’ in Queenstown.
In winter it’s about going up the mountain. Marcus my husband is an ex-professional snowboarder, so his whole upbringing has been going “up the hill” every weekend, and I did lots of seasons in Wanaka when I was younger, so it’s been really nice to live in the area rather than going on a holiday.
And then in summer, or this time of year even, the dream is to go camping – set up the tent and just be outside, and wake up freezing, haha. I think that’s my thing, camping by some kind of water. But the weekends might not be weekends for us any more, it might be more of a Monday or Tuesday thing, we’ll just see how it goes with the trade.
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SLOW store in Queenstown is a multi-dimensional retail and cafe space with a focus on sustainability, authenticity and community.
Martina: I’ve got two dogs as well, so we love to go to Wilson Bay beach, on the way to Glenorchy, it’s a different type of beach, the water’s definitely cold but because it’s pebbles and crystal clear water, it’s pretty amazing just to sit there and watch it all, and my kids love to collect driftwood and pebbles.
There are a lot of bike trails, and we’re doing lots of random things – there’s the gondola, we go there every second or third week, the kids just love it – and Arrowtown walks are beautiful… We don’t really struggle with making plans on the weekends at the moment!
[To unwind] I really appreciate yoga, I do regular yoga, and that’s my meditation. I can’t meditate on my own but yoga does that for me. And I do like baths, I’m a bath person for sure, I could be in there for an hour, easy.
Sunny: For me personally, once we’re open I’m going to book myself in for a massage, an all day spa basically! I’m a bit of a gardener, that’s probably my meditation – gardening. There’s something therapeutic about getting your hands dirty, weeding, turning over soil, watching things grow and being outdoors amongst it all. But we’re just renting a house at the moment, until we figure out where we’re going to live, and it’s pretty uninspiring weeding someone else’s garden, so I’ll have to opt for going to the onsen pools instead!
Sunday Magazine