Your guide to New Zealand streetwear

Start with one of three, depending on your taste. For everyday basics, AS Colour is the national blank: heavyweight tees and plain fleece with no branding, so you're paying for fit and fabric. For graphic streetwear, Huffer grew out of the 1990s snowboard scene into puffers, hoods and Kiwiana graphic tees. For designer clothing, Zambesi has made dark, directional tailoring in Auckland since 1979, and much of it is still made in its own workroom.

Most of them. At regular prices AS Colour is the cheapest brand here, with Commoners, Federation and RPM just above it; Huffer, I Love Ugly, Checks New Zealand and Moreporks sit in the middle, and Zambesi costs the most. Those are full prices: a sale can bring a mid-priced label down for a while, but sales come and go, so don't plan around them. The wardrobe ladder shows where each brand sits, from a plain AS Colour tee up to a Zambesi jacket.

Not necessarily. A New Zealand brand here is one founded or run from there, which says nothing about where its clothes are sewn. Zambesi makes much of its range in its own Auckland workroom, while Commoners designs in Mount Maunganui and produces with partner factories in Zhongshan, China. Icebreaker was founded in Wellington and VF says its merino comes from New Zealand farms, but it has moved its manufacturing to China. If production matters to you, check the label on the piece you want.

Many of them. AS Colour runs its own online stores for the US and Canada, the UK, Europe and Australia, and VF says Icebreaker is stocked in more than 5,000 stores across 50 countries. Zambesi, Commoners, RPM, Moreporks, Porter James Sports and Stolen Girlfriends Club ship abroad from their own sites, and I Love Ugly runs separate stores for New Zealand, Australia and the US. Huffer is the exception, delivering only within New Zealand and Australia; shipping terms change, so check the current details on each brand's page before you order.

Start with the brands' own sites and stores. Checks has two Auckland stores, in Newmarket and on Karangahape Road. AS Colour has a store on Cuba Street in Wellington, and RPM's flagship is on Hull Road in Mount Maunganui. Superette stocks Commoners, and Ballantynes, with stores in Christchurch, Timaru and Invercargill, stocks Stolen Girlfriends Club jewellery. I Love Ugly does not wholesale, so buy it direct.

None of the 13 brands on this list says it is Māori-owned, and we found no reputable source saying so, so we don't label any of them that way. Using te reo Māori or Māori imagery on clothes is not the same as Māori ownership, and we only use the label when the brand or a reputable New Zealand source says it. One Māori-owned menswear label not on this list yet is MANAAKI, which designer Kat Tua founded and runs herself and describes as a Māori brand.

Two of the older labels here began on the ski fields. RPM was founded in 1994 as a snow outerwear brand before moving into surf and skate. Huffer came out of the small New Zealand snowboard scene in 1997; its first product was a waterproof snowboard jacket, and co-founder Steve Dunstan said they wanted to look like skateboarders on the snow, not skiers. Both later grew into everyday streetwear.

Yes, though it is now led by jewellery. Marc Moore founded it in 2005 as an experimental art project, and today most of its range is jewellery, in sterling silver and gold. It still sells a men's line of T-shirts and sweatshirts, which is the part this guide covers.