Tracy Wood

Tracy is a very colourful, creative and motivated character, with a great love of animals and the natural world. While she spent over ten years practising law, Pelage was finally created as the place where she could really let herself go. A life-long passion for the outdoors was fostered by lots of time time spent as a child horse-riding in the hills of Wellington’s Hutt Valley. “The mist, water, the hills and forest, I love the elements,” and her unique designs are inspired at heart by the textures and colours of the countryside.

The discipline and competition of show jumping as a teenager was a stimulating challenge, and this is what Tracy was looking for when she decided to study law at Victoria University after leaving school. “Studying law gave me a strong sense of structure and logic.” She worked in the summers for her father’s spinning company, Woolyarns.

Tracy and her husband moved from Wellington to Auckland with work in the mid ‘80s, and a decade later, in the midst of raising children, working as a lawyer and doing all the things involved with running their historic rural property, Tracy left law practise to embark upon the enormous task of preparing her family’s weaving mill’s application for accreditation to and compliance with the stringent International Standards Association 9001 standard.

“I learned a lot during that time about fibres, designs and the production of woven fabrics.” This sparked an interest in creating finished product from New Zealand’s top quality yarns and unique fibres.

So here was the next challenge for Tracy. “New Zealand has fantastic natural resources, but we’ve lost our manufacturing base. Sadly, we’ve become a country of importers. To me, it’s all about us using these natural resources and adding value, providing employment”.

This was the fifth generation of Woods to go into the textile business, and armed with a fresh approach and post-graduate studies in management and marketing, Tracy set about putting together the excellent team she works with, and launching her collections.

The immediate success of her designs was highlighted by an invitation not only to exhibit at Heimtextil, the world’s largest textile trade show, held annually in Frankfurt, but also selection by their panel of jurors to exhibit in Dreamland, which is two special halls dedicated to products deemed to be the most innovative -- a rare accolade. Overseas and locally too, the success of Pelage’s products has been affirmation of Tracy’s creative talent and business head and the skill of her team.