History
The company was founded in 1947 by M.G McCaul as a better end women’s coat and sportswear manufacturer.
In the 1960’s he started to specialise in high end skirts, jackets and pants, made from top quality worsteds and woollens that were produced by some of the world’s best mills in the U.K, Scotland, Switzerland, Germany and Italy.
In 1966 McCauls became NZ’s second registered exporter. Over the next few years the company opened over 80 accounts across Australia and 15 accounts on the west coast of America and Canada.
In 1969 M.G McCaul died, and his son Douglas moved the company away from manufacturing in NZ, diversifying into agency selling and direct importing. Douglas felt this was the right move as manufacturing in NZ was becoming unviable in both expense and lack of qualified staff.
In 2004 Tim Willis joined the company as a salesman and in 2005, purchased a 50% shareholding in McCauls along with his wife Ingrid. The company then started to grow its import side, specialising in Australian owned brands, from its new site in Riccarton.
In July 2008 Tim and Ingrid purchased the remainder of the shares in McCauls to own the company outright. They continued trading throughout the 2011 Christchurch Earthquakes, and are seeing an increase in their range of imported fashion and accessory labels.
In 2015 McCauls moved into a purpose-built showroom and warehouse facility in Islington. McCauls now imports from suppliers in 10 different countries spread across the globe, including Canada, Italy, France, Spain, Australia, China, and England, and continues to grow its customer base within New Zealand.
