\n Success in the UK luxury beauty industry is the result of years of hard work for Joshua Mano Gilbertson, yet in New Zealand he\u2019s relatively unknown. With plans to now spend more time at home in Auckland, he tells Nicola Russell more about his path from flat broke to fortune.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s collaborated with Tommy Hilfiger and Paul Smith. His luxury fragrances have the attention of globally renowned perfumers. He\u2019s dined with King Charles and rubs shoulders with London\u2019s elite. Meet Whang\u0101rei-born Joshua Mano Gilbertson \u2013 he\u2019s getting ready to step out of the shadows.<\/p>\n
Handsome, friendly and impeccably dressed, Mano Gilbertson (Ng\u0101 Puhi, Tainui and Te \u0100tiawa o Te Waka-a-M\u0101ui) welcomes Viva into his St Marys Bay home like an old friend. After decades splitting his time between London and Aotearoa, the 45-year-old and his partner William are spending increasingly more time in Auckland \u2013 to be near their children Tiaki and Kowhai (6 and 4) who live in the city with their mums. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s 4pm and Mano Gilbertson is making coffee to cope with the time difference with his London team. He\u2019s not complaining, though. The excitement of having his new, finished perfume line MANO X MNRL (MXM) spread out on his dining room table is palpable. <\/p>\n
MXM is the new luxury line from Mano Gilbertson\u2019s group Lab Atelier Brands, releasing in the UK in April, with a New Zealand release yet to be confirmed. It\u2019s the M\u0101ori entrepreneur\u2019s second foray into fragrance, after first launching The Lab Co, a prestige home, body and fragrance brand five years ago. <\/p>\n
Joshua Mano Gilbertson’s getting ready to launch his new fragrance range, Mano X MNRL. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n
Mano Gilbertson says he discovered the power of smell when he was studying performing arts at Unitec in Auckland, where celebrated theatre director Raymond Hawthorne ONZM was his tutor.<\/p>\n
\u201cRaymond one day came up and handed me this bottle and said, \u2018Josh, this is your character\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy fragrance hoarding probably began there. I love the concept of fragrance \u2026 being something that can take you somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n
His early memories of fragrance \u2013 apart from his stepdad\u2019s Brut, come from the glasshouses of his grandfather\u2019s award-winning tomatoes in Waimauku.<\/p>\n
Joshua Mano Gilbertson pictured as a baby with his grandfather.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of my coolest memories was driving into town to sell them off the back of a truck at Turners and Growers. We\u2019d sit there and he would barter them off, then we\u2019d go to the old Farmers building for pick and mix [lollies] with Grandma.\u201d<\/p>\n
That scent has made it into one of his new fragrances in the MXM range \u2013 Red Earth Tempt\u00e1re. His grandparents played an important role in his and his sister\u2019s life and so his family moved to Auckland to be closer to them. <\/p>\n
\u201cI had a solid mother. We grew up in Whang\u0101rei, in an area called Morningside, but it was tough. Mum was a solo mum. She had been an artist and a teacher and she decided she really wanted to retrain, and so she put herself in university when I was 5 and my sister was 6.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn my first day, I remember going to Northcote Primary and not wearing shoes to school, and that was a moment \u2026 I certainly felt different, but what I quickly realised is kids don\u2019t care. By lunchtime we were all running around as mates. Then my grandma bought me some shoes and told my mother off,\u201d he says, with a laugh.<\/p>\n
His mother taught him the power of adaptability and hard work. <\/p>\n
\u201cMum went on to be one of the Auckland City Council\u2019s first female financial leaders,\u201d he says. \u201cI am immensely proud of my mum.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also sowed the seeds for his perseverance \u2013 when he asked to play computer games as a child, she said he needed to code them first. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe gave me this book and pulled a computer called a BBC out of a box, and went, \u2018there you go\u2019. And I sat there, for a couple of days, inputting zeros and ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joshua Mano Gilbertson splits his time between homes in London and Auckland’s St Marys Bay, pictured. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n
After Performing Arts School, Mano Gilbertson acted in Xena and Shortland Street. And remember the Anchor Milk ad, where the girl kisses milk off the guy\u2019s lip? That guy was him. But London was in his sights, with an OE planned with friends, and when it came to choosing a place to live, they got creative, choosing their suburb by the Monopoly board.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought, \u2018maybe we\u2019re not ready for the dark blue, maybe we\u2019ll be like yellow or red?\u2019 We ended up in the dark brown on the wrong side of Go in Bethnal Green,\u201d he recalls, laughing.<\/p>\n
It was an important time for meeting people. <\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of my connections came not through traditional networking, they came from East London, when we were all flat broke, 25-year-olds trying to find our way. They were the seeds of great trees and branches now. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought we invented skinny jeans and quiffs,\u201d he remembers. \u201cWe ended up in warehouse parties with McQueen and all these now iconic people \u2013 Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen. We were all at these crazy things together, doing creative things on the bones of our asses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Working as a tech and software founder, his move into fragrance started as a personal passion project and became a multimillion-dollar success story.<\/p>\n
\u201cFifteen years ago, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition,\u201d Mano Gilbertson says. \u201cEight years ago, a doctor suggested I remove fragrance as a possible inflammatory trigger. That was confronting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Confronting, he says, because he was a \u201ctrue fragrance junkie\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cWay before people had fragrance wardrobes, I had them,\u201d he says. \u201cI kept wearing them [despite my condition] because I loved them so much, but I thought \u2018one day I\u2019ll be able to figure out how to make a fragrance that\u2019s safe\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
A discussion with his business partner Tess Richards opened his eyes to the possibilities. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe said, \u2018well, that extends well beyond just your condition, Josh, into people who are concerned about hormones in general, about breast cancer and carcinogens and menopause and IVF\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joshua Mano Gilbertson at home in St Marys Bay, Auckland. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n
A man on a mission, Mano Gilbertson approached British department store Selfridges, who asked him to make a detergent using a clean fragrance. <\/p>\n
Mano Gilbertson and Richards were on board. Others were less enthusiastic. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople thought I was mad when I first started,\u201d Mano Gilbertson recalls. \u201cThe VC and private equity guys would look at me, say, Josh, you\u2019ve just had these massive tech businesses and you\u2019re doing, what? Perfume? <\/p>\n
\u201cBut for me, it was a path back to purpose and creativity \u2026 We knew our son Tiaki was arriving and so I wanted to do something that gave a layer of flexibility, to be able to be back here [in New Zealand].\u201d<\/p>\n
He approached major fragrance houses, who also said his goal \u2013 to remove 100% of known carcinogens, hormone disruptors and endocrine-disrupting chemicals \u2013 couldn\u2019t be done. Determined, he went to Grasse to study perfumery. <\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, I don\u2019t believe it, and I\u2019m going to go and study it. So I went with Tess and threw myself into the chemistry and craftsmanship of fragrance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lab Co’s cashmere care kit.<\/p>\n
The hard work has paid off. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Lab Co. is the first fragrance house to be approved by Breast Cancer UK,\u201d Mano Gilbertson says. \u201cAnd that is huge, it took years of development with our chemists, with our perfumers, with loads of people, to get to that point.\u201d<\/p>\n
Along the way, he\u2019s had some career-defining moments. <\/p>\n
\u201cPaul Smith contacted me and said, \u2018Josh, I love what you\u2019re doing\u2019. I think he called me the \u2018geekiest, coolest fragrance house\u2019 … And so, we collaborated with him on a luxury fragrance detergent to take care of his cashmere products.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then Tommy Hilfiger contacted us, and they said \u2018we want to hand your products out at Fashion Week in New York\u2019. So our products were in bags on every chair at Fashion Week, and we were tiny then. Instead of handing out perfume, they handed out laundry detergent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Traditionally he\u2019s held back from the limelight, letting Richards front the brand, but now with plans to bring Lab closer to home, he\u2019s happier to step forward. <\/p>\n
\u201cI hope Lab Atelier Brands can be a really deeply rooted Aotearoa and London house. So I\u2019m really interested in exploring what\u2019s possible there. There\u2019s many steps yet to get to that point \u2026 but I think there\u2019s a space to have creativity and teams in both those worlds,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really interested in seeing where New Zealand can find its own luxury voice, beyond travel and scenery into new territories, like fragrance.\u201d<\/p>\n
He admires the work of local perfumers Abel and Curio Noir and is in conversations with Wellington fragrance maker Nathan Taare. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a M\u0101ori perfumer, self-taught and extremely creative, who I\u2019m speaking with about collaborating on Aotearoa characters in our high-luxury MXM collection,\u201d says Mano Gilbertson. \u201cThere are also some other very interesting collaborative conversations here in New Zealand underway \u2013 but I can\u2019t reveal those just yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
His MXM line already has some high-profile attention. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re working with Dora Baghriche who created \u2018Glossier You\u2019 \u2026 she\u2019s like a top three [fragrance] rock star,\u201d he says, with excitement.<\/p>\n
Mano Gilbertson says he plans to make the products locally available online mid-year and is exploring a creative space in Auckland. He says is in early conversations with partners about stocking M\u00c1NO \u00d7 MNRL and The Lab Co in New Zealand and Australia, mentioning MECCA and Woolworths as \u201cnatural homes\u201d for the products.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe market is ready, \u201d he says. \u201cThe real question now is which retailers choose to lead the shift.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mano X MNRL is the new perfume range from Joshua Mano Gilbertson’s luxury fragrance company The Lab Co.<\/p>\n
Life looks different now \u2013 with experiences young Josh wouldn\u2019t have imagined. Like isolating while on holiday in Mexico, after a dinner host came down with Covid. That dinner host was King Charles. Dinner was at Buckingham Palace. <\/p>\n
His Instagram shows the glamorous side to his life \u2013 black-tie events, luxury travel, pictures with celebrities and friends, including Sweden-born model Frida Redknapp and her husband, former professional footballer Jamie.<\/p>\n
But despite his success, Josh says his value of \u201cstewardship over hype\u201d is central to his life. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe really cool thing about Kiwis is we help each other no matter where we are. We\u2019re very iwi-based.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople often ask how my M\u0101ori background shows up in what I build, especially in luxury. I think some people expect a literal answer: motifs, ceremony, aesthetics. But for me, tikanga isn\u2019t performance, it\u2019s an internal operating system. It sits in the values \u2013 collaboration over ego, manaakitanga [care], whanaungatanga [connection], stewardship for future generations, and the idea that we are at our best when we build as an iwi, not as individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n
More Kiwi creatives and entrepreneurs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Success in the UK luxury beauty industry is the result of years of hard work for Joshua Mano…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1443,51,1244,46300,23973,156,9639,81346,311,31872,71,160703,160702,6098,5420,1345,2454,38862,2203,7189,206,160701,130,37107,111,139,20484,69,31472,2171,65162,12229,11763,14040,3502,6642,223,2044,61,4060,102,4576,1530,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-289613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-about","9":"tag-auckland","10":"tag-beauty","11":"tag-broke","12":"tag-cos","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-flat","15":"tag-fortune","16":"tag-founder","17":"tag-fragrance","18":"tag-from","19":"tag-gilbertson","20":"tag-gilbertsons","21":"tag-hard","22":"tag-hes","23":"tag-home","24":"tag-industry","25":"tag-joshua","26":"tag-journey","27":"tag-lab","28":"tag-luxury","29":"tag-mano","30":"tag-more","31":"tag-multimilliondollar","32":"tag-new-zealand","33":"tag-newzealand","34":"tag-nicola","35":"tag-nz","36":"tag-path","37":"tag-plans","38":"tag-relatively","39":"tag-result","40":"tag-russell","41":"tag-spend","42":"tag-success","43":"tag-tells","44":"tag-the","45":"tag-time","46":"tag-to","47":"tag-unknown","48":"tag-with","49":"tag-work","50":"tag-years","51":"tag-zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}