Lewi Brown on life after league: From NRL star to fashion designer

Ironically, uniforms have been a feature of his life since leaving school. Warriors, Kiwis, Panthers and Sea Eagles – he was paid to wear those uniforms. Now he creates them.

Lewi Brown’s mum, Trish, as featured in a promotional campaign for his Home collection, an Earls collaboration with Asics. Photo / Matt Neilsen

New Zealand Warrior No 151, Brown has designed two collections for the club whose colours he first wore in the top grade.

Following up on his debut “Dear Warrior” jersey from 2025, he has recently seen “Kotahitanga” released before the club’s return to Christchurch. They’ll play the Cowboys in front of a sell-out crowd at One NZ Stadium next weekend.

Kotahitanga is packed with detail, including the gripper design on the playing jersey – created by Brown’s niece, which honours fallen Warriors Sonny Fai, Quentin Pongia and Doc Mayhew.

The Canterbury-inspired jersey is understood to have generated about $350,000 in sales over the first 24 hours of its availability. That was followed up by the “03 Fauxback” jersey. At risk of contradicting Brown’s unwavering authenticity, a “fauxback” is a fake throwback. In this case, that’s a new jersey designed to look “retro”. Using the phrase in the jersey’s title keeps with Brown’s trademark transparency and the design is another example of his connected creativity.

Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad modelling the Fauxback 03 jersey, designed by Lewi Brown for the NZ Warriors.

Earls

It’s been a month of highs and lows for the boy from Belfast in north Christchurch – enjoying great success from top to toe as well as a broken heart.

Having dreamed of playing State of Origin for Queensland, before realising he was never eligible, Brown got as close as he could to running out for his adopted state.

His unmistakable brown and white boots by Asics, with his Earls brand emblazoned above the heel, were on the feet of Harry Grant and Max Plath, as well as New South Welshmen Cam Murray and Matt Burton.

He also lost his treasured Nan, a woman who he credits with making him feel “safe, loved, and capable of anything”. Brown’s career is a testament to the latter, at the very least.

The Queensland State of Origin side and an inset of the Earls x Asics boots worn by Harry Grant and Max Plath in the first match of the series in Sydney. Photo / Photosport

Earls is derived from a middle name Brown shares with his late father, Bevan. It launched in 2018 to “redefine sporting attire” and Brown’s own identity. It has flirted with the threat of mainstream popularity, a “success” he narrowly avoided, and a choice that threatened to close his business for good.

He cancelled a range of shorts because they were “everywhere”.

Lewi Brown’s Earls x Asics boots. Photo / Matt Neilsen

The luxury clothing brand has at times merged with his lifelong love of rugby league, which he believes comes from wanting to “feel welcomed” as a child.

“What I’ve learned with my wairua [spirit], it starts from my dad leaving when I was 4 weeks old. My dad went off and had another [family]. At that time, I didn’t know that was my stepbrother. I just associated him as another boy. So, for me, I was like, why doesn’t my dad want me? Why is he picking that kid over there?” Brown says.

“He’s living nicely, and me, mum and my sister, we’re barely having power. We’re barely getting food.”

He felt welcomed at his junior club. Having started as a 4-year-old at Marist Western Suburbs, the club folded a few years later and Brown found himself at Riccarton Knights. He also found guidance from coaches who made an impact that is still felt today.

The club features prominently in his latest collection – Home. Rugby league is not just a part of who he was but very much who he is. The hard-running former back rower has a gentleness in his voice when he speaks of the biggest influences in his life.

Lewi Brown with his late Nan and Pop.

“My grandad, my mum’s dad, he raised me. My Pop Bill, Wiremu – he was more my idol,” Brown says from his home in Sydney.

He’d spend hours outside kicking the ball on the front lawn of the “big house” with his Pop. Diving around and talking to himself, commentating like the great Ray Warren. He’d collect the cards of his NRL heroes, too.

“I was like trying to emulate it all the time.

“I wanted to be a rugby league player but deep down I just wanted to be my grandad. Just a good human.”

The insole for Lewi Brown’s Asics trainer features the carpet pattern from his grandparents’ house. Photo / Matt Nielsen

Pop

During a recent promotional shoot at what was once his grandparents’ place, Brown and his crew had the idea of re-enacting a mock goal kick from his childhood. A successful kick would see the ball sail over the two-storey home.

The former schoolmaster’s house in Belfast is instantly recognisable to locals and has been in Brown’s family for generations. It’s brilliantly captured on a line of knitwear that Earls has released.

Lewi’s Nan, modelling the Earls knitwear that features her former home, the place that Brown calls the “big house”. Photo / Matt Neilsen

It was also brilliantly captured in footage of Brown’s goal kick.

“But that was impromptu. I used to kick out of my grandad’s shoe because I couldn’t afford a [kicking] tee. He wore Asics most of his life. So I was like, oh, how about we just set this up? Last shot of the day, I was like, ‘let me try and kick this over the house’.”

Despite being “rusty as”, Brown hits the kick perfectly, flying end over end straight over the house – before chasing after it. He says that wasn’t planned, it was the moment he realised what he’d done.

“Honestly, I just watched it. And then Matty [photographer] goes, ‘oh, bro, our camera gear!’ So that’s why I’ve taken off.”

Having ascertained that his perfect kick had not harmed the camera gear, Brown returned to find his crew pale faced – and it wasn’t because of their concern for their equipment on the other side of the house.

“They’re like, ‘Oh, you’ve got to see this’. I watched it, bro, and I got goosebumps.”

The footage showed the shoe that Brown kicked the ball from tumble forward after his foot made contact with it. As he runs through the shot to check on the camera gear, the trainer falls faultlessly back into place. Authentically. No interference. No AI.

“You know the craziest thing? That morning, I interviewed my nana. I said to her like, ‘Nan, what do you think Pop would be thinking?’ She’s like, ‘no, no, no’. And didn’t even hesitate, ‘He’s not thinking, he’s here with us. I felt him here on Tuesday’.

“So for me, I was just like, at that moment, I connected the dots. Bro, that was him!”

The imposter

For a man as authentic as Brown is, he suffers greatly from imposter syndrome and says it’s not a new condition.

It was something he suffered from as a teenager and most recently as a guest on Australian television, sitting alongside three of rugby league’s greatest, Andrew Johns, Brad Fittler and Cameron Smith, as part of his latest work with Asics.

“And do you think I deserved to be at that table? I didn’t, bro. Those guys are my heroes.”

Lewi Brown in action for the Warriors against the Canterbury Bulldogs at Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland, in 2012. Photo / Richard Robinson

The psychological experience had surfaced 25 years earlier, as a young Lewi Brown announced himself on the national stage.

Having missed out on the initial Canterbury under-15 squad, Brown was devastated. The fact it was his long-time junior representative coach Mal Simpson who left him out was even harder on the young halfback. He cried.

But instead of sulking, he sought guidance from former Canterbury, Kiwis and Warriors halfback Aaron Whittaker, and for one reason or another, he was called into the squad before the national tournament.

At the end of the tournament, won by Auckland, a New Zealand merit team was named. Brown says he was as shocked as anyone when the No 7 was announced.

Lewis Brown, Canterbury.

“And straight away, I was just like, do I deserve it? And that’s something I battled my whole life. Do I belong?

“But I still walked up and when I turned around, I knew I deserved it when Mal was up clapping and I don’t even think he knows [I know] this, but he was crying. I made a hero of mine, someone that inspired me to play for them, cry.

“I think it wasn’t because my name got read out, I think he understood I put the hard work in. That’s when I knew I belonged.”

Ivan Cleary was in charge of the New Zealand Warriors when Lewi Brown joined the club. Photo / Photosport

The mentors

It was Ivan Cleary who decided he belonged in first grade. The current Penrith Panthers coach was in charge of the New Zealand Warriors when Brown came to the club. Cleary is now considered to be among the game’s greatest mentors after guiding the Panthers to four consecutive NRL titles. But to Brown, Cleary was a great long before he earned his first premiership ring.

It was also Cleary who shifted Brown from hooker to the second row, swapping the middle of the field for an edge. The move reshaped Brown’s career.

“He said to me at halftime against the Cowboys in a trial, ‘Have you ever played back row?’ And I was like, nah. He’s like, ‘All right. See Jonathan Thurston’s shoulder – just rip his inside shoulder off. You’ve got leg power, get through it, just hit the ball at speed’.

“I scored a double that day at North Harbour Stadium, and that day I became a back rower.”

Lewi Brown, playing for the Panthers, is wrapped up by Shaun Johnson, Sam Rapira and Elijah Taylor on his return to Mt Smart in 2013. Photo / Greg Bowker

It was then Cleary who enticed Brown to Sydney. He left the Warriors at the end of 2012 with 84 games across four seasons, including a Grand Final appearance in 2011, playing in the centres.

In 2010, he played his first test for the Kiwis, closing a loop that had begun 15 years before.

“I was a ball boy in 95 at Lancaster Park, it was a Great Britain tour. I got Steve Kearney’s socks off him and then, little did I know, he was going to be my first Kiwis coach. There’s so many full circle moments in my life that people probably won’t believe it, but it’s true.

“I got coached by some amazing humans. People that probably don’t even know how much impact they had on my life. I come from a single mum, I was probably subconsciously trying to seek out a father figure. So rugby league gave me that because I had a coach.”

The “big house” where Lewi Brown would spend hours kicking a ball around with his Pop. Photo / Matt Neilsen

The ceiling

Even the negative influences were good for Brown. He found himself in tune with the nay-sayers from an early age. As a young man, he’d play touch in the summer and rugby and league through the winter. He showed great promise in all three codes.

“I got offered a couple of scholarships to private schools in Christchurch, and then I got in the room, and it was like, ‘You can come here, but you’ve got to give up rugby league. Because you’re here to play First XV rugby’.

“I didn’t say anything and then I got in the car. Mum’s like, ‘oh, that’s something’. I was like, ‘Nah, mum. They’re trying to tell me what I can be and what I can’t be’. Trying to tell me I can be an All Black, but I’ve never wanted to be an All Black, I wanted to be a Kiwi.”

Young Lewi Brown with Nan and Pop.

School life added fuel to the fire that was burning inside Brown.

“I got called in by teachers that said to me, you’ve got to give up on this NRL dream. They pulled out percentages to tell me that I couldn’t make it.

“I’m a kid, you’re a teacher, empower me!”

Even within the game he loved, a game he excelled in, he’d find doubters.

“I was getting torn down by adults telling me I couldn’t do something. How do you walk up to a kid that’s 15 [and say] ‘maybe it’s not right for you to play rugby league’.”

After 198 NRL games and 15 test matches for New Zealand, Brown could not have silenced them any more emphatically.

“When you figure out what your drivers are and you start keeping receipts about proving people wrong, that’s when you start to channel it in a different way.

“The only person that can put a ceiling on you is yourself. And I’ve never ever put a ceiling on myself or anyone that I talk to.”

Like his NRL career before it, the sky is the limit for Brown in the world of fashion.

And now when he looks above, he sees his day-one inspiration – as detailed in his recent heartfelt online tribute to his late Nan.

“For so long, the first star in the night sky was Pop. I’ll look up and know it is you both smiling down, holding each other, protecting me and our family in your own way.

“The first star is yours now, together.”

Mike Thorpe is a senior multimedia journalist for the Herald, based in Christchurch. He has been a broadcast journalist across television and radio for 20 years and joined the Herald in August 2024.