There’s no size limit on Hine Collection, or Miria Flavell’s dreams

The wahine behind Aotearoa’s most successful activewear brand on finding her kaupapa, and her advice for aspiring business owners.

Miria Flavell (Taranaki, Ngāti Rangiwewehi) is the powerful force behind Hine Collection, a Māori-led activewear brand that champions body inclusivity, offering her community of loyal fans (including model Kaarina Parker) a more diverse representation of what a healthy body looks like.

The kaupapa behind Hine started with Flavell’s own fitness journey. Spurred on by a health scare that resulted in surgery, she decided to make a healthier lifestyle change and share the process on social media. For Flavell, it was less about reaching her goals as an individual - she wanted to inspire as many women as she possibly could to take care of their health and wellbeing. Her Facebook group ‘The Hine Movement’ flourished, offering a safe space where eventually thousands of Kiwi women came to motivate each other to get active.

For Miria - who was a self-employed makeup artist at the time - the idea to start her own activewear brand was an offshoot to the community she had built.

“I thought about our women - Māori and Pasifika in particular - who were training, who were taking care of themselves, but at the time it was hard to find clothing that catered to us. Let’s be honest, clothing makes a huge difference for women to feel comfortable enough to even step into a gym and start training. Especially for the first time - I’ve been there, and it’s scary! For me, having that confidence in clothing was really important.”

She knew that if she was feeling like there were no brands catering to her, a lot of other women would be feeling the same way. “Māori and Pasifika women come in so many different shapes and sizes. That’s where the motivation came from.”

Flavell founded Hine Collection in 2018 with very little business experience under her belt, throwing