How a freezer kickstarted a 50 year career in bag-making

Nearly 50 years ago, Dan Hickman swapped a freezer for a sewing machine.

These days, you won't find many people in Otorohanga that aren't proud owners of a colourful Danzbagz bag.

You'd be quick to assume Dan Hickman is the name and face of Danzbagz but his wife Chris thinks otherwise.

"Christine worked it out after 40 years of hard labour that Danzbagz stands for durable, affordable, New Zealand bagz so that was me put in my place," he says with a chuckle.

Red, pink, orange and blue bags might catch your eye as you drive down Otorohanga main street.

From hay bale bags, caving bags, truckie bags to saddle bags, there aren't many locals without at least one of Dan's colourful designs.

You could say, he's world-famous in Otorohanga.

It all started with a dream of making moccasin boots, Dan says.

"You couldn't get them in the day so I wanted to make this pair. I went to the leather and handcraft shop but got diverted into leather shoulder bags."

At the time, Dan was working at the Great Outdoors tent factory, which served him well as the 150 women working at the factory would order a shoulder bag and pay it off at $5 a week.

Over time, however, leather became more expensive. With more than a few bags up his sleeve, Dan was looking to expand his craft.

"The [Great Outdoors] sewing machine mechanic said, 'look I've got this fantastic sewing machine you should buy.' 

"I said I can't buy anything, I can't afford a sewing machine. All I've got is this seven-foot freezer I can't afford to fill with bread, let alone meat.

"And he said, 'oh I'm looking for a freezer.' 

"So we swapped and that was my first sewing machine. I'd get the scraps out of the bin from Great Outdoors and I would make bags."

Dan and Chris Hickman recently celebrated 49 years of marriage.

The pair have always done business together with different ventures into sportswear alongside the bags.

Starting out in Hamilton, the pair moved to Otorohanga in King Country in the early 2000s.

In 2020, the lease on their second shop in town came up and they asked each other whether it was time to retire.

"But then this shop came up, so why not, what else are you going to do when you get to 65," Chris said.

"Apart from Covid, it's been quite amazing as it's immediately raised our profile. It's State Highway 3, you can't really get much better than that."

Chris says in the mid-1990s, bags were a difficult market with cheap imports flooding the market. It was the sportswear that kept them afloat.

Then eight years ago, they dropped the sportswear altogether, as again cheaper imports weren't making it feasible.

"We're doing just bags and developing industrial stuff, we do a lot of bags for shearers and a lot of stuff for pest control, like pouches and big backpacks," Chris said.

"Black water rafting, they have their special backpacks. They tell us what they want and we do it, and that's pretty much how it works."

You'd be hard-pressed to find a black or even grey bag inside the Danzbagz manufacturing/retail store.

For the Hickmans, the reason is simple –"it's boring sewing black".

"You've got to like what you are making. And I like colour," Dan says.

Bright colours are what you'll find in the Danbagz shop. From an array of peg bags that line the window to Dan's all-time favourite, the Expanda Bag, colour is everywhere you look.

Although customers might ignite a new bag design idea every now and then, Dan usually comes up with all of the designs – even dreaming them up sometimes.

"I've worked out a few bags which I've had problems with knowing how to put them together.

"I've saved a lot of money by coming in here and putting [the dreams] down onto a pattern."

Dan says eventually he would like to sell Danzbagz, but not before he's put at least two years into teaching a new owner all of the bag-making shortcuts he's learnt along the way.