Zion Armstrong: Jamie Kay CEO on the company expanding across Asia and the US

Kiwi children’s clothing brand Jamie Kay has seen some noticeable growth, and it's going global.

Jamie Kay opened a flagship store in Christchurch last year and now has four stores in Japan, across Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, and another to come in 18 months.

A flagship in Singapore will open in December, and there's also growing demand for the brand across the US.

CEO Zion Armstrong outlines the company's next steps.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now iconic Kiwi kids cloth clothing brand Jamie Kay as
I told you was taking on the world. They launched
their flagship store in christ Church last year. Now rapidly
expanding into Asia. They've got four stores in Japan, two
Asian locations in the pipeline. America is proving to be
their strongest play. The market is now making up thirty
percent of their total sales. Their chief executive is the
former added as North America president Xeon Armstrong. Who's with

(00:22):
us z on?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hello? Hey, how are you?

Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm very well mate?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
How are you living the dream?

Speaker 1 (00:28):
How did you end up at Jamie Kay?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
It was actually a coincidence.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
When I returned to New Zealand, I took some time
off and our children we're going to the same school,
so we literally bumped into each other. It had a
kid's school car park and that led to a conversation.
And fast forward a year later we're working together.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
And do you dress your kids head to tail? Now
in Jamie Kay.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
I was actually doing a bit of research here that
you haven't purchased from us since January twenty five, so
we need to talk.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Oh no, you can me out, But have you seen
that I have been on your website in the last week.
You can't track me that.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
I can track your orders, but my kids a little
bit older now, so just getting to the correct.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
But see on you must have like with your CV,
you must have your pick of going anywhere. So what
is it about Jamie Kay that convinced you to join up?

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah? Thank you. It's a kind comment for me.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
When I came home, I wanted to really find a
new Zealand company that I could take my skills that
I had and transfer that and then just so lucky
to have met Jamie and her incredible team and what
they had created. You just turned thirteen. So when we
first met and she said would you like to be

(01:44):
the CEO? I was like, I'm not sure if any
founder can actually let go. But she's been excellent and
we've found a great yin Yang. So she's the creative
director and my focus has been taking us around the world.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Now what is it about you guys that is appealing
to the world, Like this is a reasonably fast expansion.
It's been very successful.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
So why quality?

Speaker 3 (02:08):
One of our four values is quality and that's stood
the test of time. When parents are reselling their product,
that they've had for year after year, and we want
to keep those resale pages going because it means the
community can give back to each other, means the productice
is standing the test time, both in terms of quality
but also design aesthetics.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
What is it? How are you going to break into
the US? Because I mean, I suppose you've got thirty
percent of your sales are already to the US, but
you need to get in there in a big way.
How do you do it?

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (02:38):
Correct, So, so it's always been our number one market until
last year with obviously the tariffs et cetera through a
massive curve all to us. So we made the Bowld
call to set up a distribution center in Kentucky, which
eliminated all.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
The confusion to the consumers so they.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
Could just buy from ourselves and then have that ship locally.
So it came a big investment, but we managed to
get that up and run within three months. And so
now we've actually had a team in the US for
the last few weeks and we've attended five trade shows
and getting some fantastic results.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
I was thinking about in fact, funnily enough, I put
my boy in one of your jumpers this morning. So
It got me thinking about the color scheme, and I wonder,
are you guys, like, is it possible that you're at
the tail end of a trend that's about to change?
This is the only concern I have for you is
that I see a lot of the kids running around
at Kindy at the moment are starting to wear like

(03:31):
neon colors like we walk back in the late eighties,
early nineties and that kind of scandy beij vibe that
you guys have got going. Is it maybe the fashion
changing and you're going to miss a trick here?

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
So we had the courage about a year ago to
stop trying to design so far out by having samples,
et cetera. So we decided we're going to be the
brand that hard delivers at once.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
No other brand in the world does this in this space.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
What that means is every month we drop a new collection,
which allows us to continue to push the needle in
terms of product design, materials, colors, and trends.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
So if you look at our products that we've launched this.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
Month versus this time twelve months ago, we're a completely
different brand.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
So the idea of getting into the neons and all
that kind of stuff is not impossible for you.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
No, that's not our space. We'll stand our lane.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yeah, and we'll continue to make sure that we innovate
in our space.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
But that's that's not somewhere that will go.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Your lane is heritage, isn't it correct? Like you could
imagine you could imagine some of the royals being in
your clothes. You can send some samples to the royals, mate.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah, well, if this keeps going well, we'll send you
up some samples to make sure you.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Don't worry about me. I'm not an influencer you. Janey
had a baby the other day, didn't she send them
some clothes?

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Her kids are growing up as well.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
But the other pieces we have warehouse of four brands.
So we acquired Marino Kids, which is another amazing New
Zealand story that was about to be sold to an
off your company. We caught window it and managed to
keep it here in New Zealand. So for the last
two years we've been behind the scenes redesigning that product
as well and.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Just recently relaunched that.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
So give us another avenue to your point in terms
of design direction. It just gives you another brand it
to allow you to appeal to a broader set of audience.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Good on you, okay, So if you could, what would
your perfect business look like? What's your goal in ten years?

Speaker 3 (05:27):
You know something I actually wrote down that Jamie said
a few months ago, and it's aspirations to make it
the best it can be. And if we can continue
to do that across all four brands, and then have
aspirations to have the best relationships with our distributed partners
around the world, then I don't think the sky's the limits,
just the view. We've opened up in sixteen markets in
the last three years with some fantastic partners and really

(05:51):
focus on Asia now the US, so it still leaves
all of Europe, Latin America, et cetera. So's so much
more opportunity. But we want to make the big bigger
before we start trying to spread ourselves too far and
too thin.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Oh good on you man, I'm so excited. Zeon, thank
you so much, look after yourself and go well with
the business. Zion Armstrong, Jamie k CEO.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
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