About Wild Balance
Designed here. Made here.
Wild Balance is made by us - Ray, Halee, and our daughter Quinn.
It started with two things we love to do. Sewing clothes and exploring deep into the alps.
Wild Balance is where those two worlds meet - merino hunting clothing, made one at a time, with each garment carrying its own hand-dyed pattern.
It is practical clothing for hunting in the hills, without needing to look like standard hunting gear.
Our clothing story
Halee grew up around sewing and manufacturing - horse covers, canvas and outdoor gear. She learnt to sew when young, and before long was making custom pieces for people around her.
Ray came to clothing through design. While studying in Dunedin, clothing became another creative medium: practical, functional, and full of possibility.
Together, we started Morphic - a Christchurch clothing business making custom merino hoodies and one-off garments in colours and designs people could choose. We built up a real kiwi-made business manufacturing in Christchurch and exporting around the world to Germany, France, Canada, and the United States.
The thread carried forward
The Christchurch earthquakes changed everything.
Our house and sewing studio were badly damaged and life moved in other directions.
The clothing business paused, but the making and experimenting did not.
Now years later, we reconnected with our fabric supplier. It felt like picking up a thread we had never really put down.
Wild Balance is that thread carried forward.
Why clothing for the Alps
We are always on adventures - hiking, hunting, and exploring.
Ray grew up on a farm and hunted small game as a kid, but deer hunting in the Canterbury high country lit a spark. Quinn loves hunting tahr and is chasing her first chamois. Halee enjoys the hike, and the adventure, though she would rather shoot a fish than a deer.
We are out in the hills most weekends, testing ideas, learning, and paying attention to the details.
We wanted to make hunting clothing with more character than a standard technical layer. Each hoodie is cut, sewn, and hand dyed one at a time, creating natural variation in tone and pattern. No two garments are the same. It is camouflage shaped by the hills, but made to be worn well beyond them.
Why merino
Merino its the the ultimate, grown in the extremes for the extremes.
It is warm, breathable, comfortable, naturally odour-resistant, and easy to live in across changing conditions. It works with you when you are hot, cold, moving, resting, climbing, or glassing.
We are focused on pure merino rather than polyester-cored (plastic) blends, because we want the garment to stay as honest as possible: natural fibre, no plastic, practical design, and clothing that feels good to wear for a long time.
Wild Balance
Wild Balance is the new chapter.
The patterns have been refined. The sewing studio has been rebuilt. Halee’s dye work has reached a level we are excited to share.
Wild Balance is more focused. It brings together our clothing background, our love of natural fibre, and our experience in New Zealand’s mountains.
We want people to feel the difference of clothing made personally, not anonymously.
Something that fits well. Works properly. Carries the care that went into it. And feels connected to the place it is made for.
That is Wild Balance.