A Wanaka-based design label has come up with a creative way to put quality clothes in front of more customers.

Wanaka-based design label Precious Collaborative is selling $10,000 coats to help subsidise other items on the rack.

It's selling the coats, designed by Liz Mitchell, to help subsidise a further 20 items on the rack. Instead of their true cost of $690, the items' "gift" price drops to $189 courtesy of the money from the coats.

The aim is to put quality New Zealand woollen items within reach.

The pinafore and women's pants from the Precious Collaborative collection.

After a lengthy hiatus from the fashion business raising her three children, Precious Collaborative's founder Claire O'Connell needed a new kind of business model, she told RNZ’s Nine to Noon.

“I realised if I wanted to make clothes, they were going to be expensive and most of the population wouldn't be able to afford them.”

When she sent a sample off to designer Liz Mitchell, who didn’t know her “from a bar of soap" at the time, she got an immediate response.

“She got this little box with a sleeve in it and a few other items on her desk, and she rang me straight away and said she would be on board with the coats.

“So, she designed some coats, and we then went to launch the coats which we did in Wanaka last December and we sold one of the coats for $10,000.”

At that point O’Connell, was able to put the collection into production.

The collection is made from fine traditional tweed and hemp, she says.

“There are pants for men, pants for women. I call them a women's cut, and a men's cut because people can wear each other's cut pants. There's a pinafore, which has sold incredibly well. There's a skirt and there's a hemp shirt.

“The first four items are all tweed, fully lined tweed and the last item is an organic hemp shirt.”

Everyone deserves to own something of quality they attach meaning to, O'Connell says.

“We have lost the ability to attach meaning to what we purchase in a way with fast fashion I feel that deeply.”

The purchasers of the coats so far (both wishing to remain anonymous), understand the concept, she says.

“The second coat buyer, before they had even actually received their coat, sent me an email and asked if they could spend another $10,000 on their coat. So, they have paid $20,000.

“The reason they've done that is they fully get the idea that it is not simple for people to pull themselves out of the fast fashion loop. It's not just a monetary thing, it's a mindset.”

Ninety garments from the collection have been pre-sold, she says.

“Ten percent of the people who bought those garments chose to pay the true price for them. They didn't pay the gift price.

“So, they've done that paying it forward thing and another 5 percent of people have paid somewhere between the gift price and the true price.”

PHOTOS: Jodie James