Our Story
Every sunrise belongs to the East. Every sunset belongs to the West. But the sky that burns brightest — that belongs to Rakiura. Land of the glowing skies.
EASTERLY is the elements.
Earth. Air. Fire. Water. Spirit. The forces that were here before us and will be here long after. At the bottom of the world, where the Southern Ocean meets ancient granite with a force that shakes the ground beneath your feet. This is Rakiura. Stewart Island.
EASTERLY is a love for a place, its people, and the spirit that lives here.
The Mark
See the icon? It's an East Cardinal Mark. Sailors know it. It marks the rocks. The wrecks. The hidden dangers that sink you before you even knew they were there. And it tells you one thing —
Safe passage lies to the East.
Two black cones. Base to base. Immovable. At night — three white flashes. Three truths.
Integrity. Unconditional Love. Resilience.
The top triangle — fire and air. The spirit that rises. The part of you that refuses to be extinguished no matter how many times the wind has tried to take it.
The bottom triangle — earth and water. Your roots. The ancient, elemental part of you that holds when everything above the surface is chaos.
Between them — the horizon. Where the storm finally breaks. Where light tears through.
Stay away from shallow thinking. Shallow living. Shallow people. The rocks that sink you aren't always made of granite.
The Island
Halfmoon Bay. Stewart Island. Rakiura.
The main hub faces East. The inner harbour opens to first light. The earth is ancient. The water wild and honest — rising where ocean meets forest, the kind of oxygen that revitalises something you didn't know was depleted.
Rakiura is a healing island.
Visitors arrive carrying heavy things — grief, burnout, uncertainty. And then something happens. After even a single night on this island, people feel at peace. Rested. Somehow complete.
The same spirit that moves through this land moves through you. When you can't feel it — go East. Watch the sky. Let the light do what light does.
Kaitiakitaki — Guardianship of Rakiura
Rakiura does not belong to us. She belongs to our tīpuna — our ancestors — and to every generation that will come after.
Walk gently on this land. Leave no trace. The creatures of Rakiura are not a resource to be exploited. They are part of something ancient and irreplaceable.
When you wear the East Cardinal Mark, you are declaring that understanding. You are part of a tribe that knows this place is sacred — and carries that knowledge with them, wherever they go.
The People
EASTERLY is for the genuine.
The loving and the tough. The humble and the courageous. The ones who work hard, play hard, and still find time to lift someone else up. Fair. Authentic. Always growing.
The kind of person who changes the world — not by shouting about it, but by living it.
The Mission
EASTERLY's mission is awareness of self and the ramifications you have on this world.
A beacon. Not a lecture. A reminder of what already lives inside you — the courage, the love, the capacity to make an impact. A daily reminder to breathe. To look at how far you have come. To celebrate your life.
Celebrate Rakiura
If you have ever visited Stewart Island and it moved you — changed your life — we would love to hear from you.
We are building a dedicated space to honour the people, the stories, and the spirit of this island. Your voice belongs there.
Write to us: hello@easterly.kiwi
The People Behind EASTERLY
EASTERLY was founded by Zane and Rebecca Smith — a family from Rakiura, Stewart Island, New Zealand.
Alana Moffatt — 4AM Studio
There's a moment in every brand's life where something clicks. Where the vision in your head finally meets the world — and it's exactly right.
For EASTERLY, that moment happened because of a girl I went to school with on the East Coast of the South Island.
Alana Moffatt and I sat in the same classrooms at South Otago High School back in 2001. Two kids from the edge of New Zealand, figuring out who we were going to be.
Turns out — she became one of the most talented designers I've ever seen.
When I came to Alana with the EASTERLY icon, I had a mark that meant everything to me but needed the hand of someone who truly understood design at the highest level. Someone who could take raw vision and refine it into something iconic. Something that would last.
Alana did that. And then some. She didn't just polish a logo. She understood the soul of what EASTERLY is trying to say — and made sure every line, every curve, every detail said it with precision and power.
The icon you see on every EASTERLY piece? That's Alana's craft living in the world.
If you're building a brand, launching a business, or need design work that actually moves people — don't settle for almost right.
🌐 4amstudio.co.nz
Zane Smith — Co-founder
Zane is a commercial fisherman and a Stewart Island man through and through. He knows these waters the way most people know their own backyard — by feel, by instinct, by years of showing up before the sun does. He has flown helicopters over the wild landscape of Rakiura — a man who has seen this island from the sea and from the sky.
EASTERLY is built on that foundation. His hands. His hours. His quiet, unwavering provision for this family.
We dedicate EASTERLY to Rakiura. To the island that raised us, shaped us, and called us back. To the generations who came before — and to the generations who will come after. May they always know where they come from. May they always know what it means.
This is for you, Rakiura. It always was.
— The Smith Family. Zane, Rebecca & the kids. Stewart Island | Rakiura, New Zealand.
The Kids
The kids are wild and free. Growing up close to the land, close to the sea, close to something ancient and real. No screens replacing sunsets. No concrete replacing sand.
The designs don't come from a mood board. They come from these moments. From what we see, what we feel, what we want to remember.
That's what you're wearing when you wear EASTERLY. A family. An island. A life chosen on purpose.
Rebecca-Lynn Cavanagh Smith — Co-founder
"What's the point of all of it if I couldn't make it useful?"
— Rebecca-Lynn Cavanagh Smith, Co Founder, EASTERLY
If you started out in rough shape — this page is for you. Because she did too. And she chose a different life. You can too.
There's a girl I know.
She was twelve — that summer before high school — when her mother told her that her father and she had split, and that there was already someone else. There had been no fighting. No signs of unhappiness. They had seemed so happy. It made no sense. And that was the problem — if you couldn't trust what looked happy, what could you trust?
Becky didn't have words for what she was feeling. She just needed it to stop.
She started drinking early.
A Stewart Island kid. Which meant leaving home for the mainland for secondary school — away from the island, away from everything familiar, navigating a bigger world far from the beauty and tranquility and safety of Rakiura.
Becky found happiness in playing rugby for the 1st XV at James Hargest in 1999 and 2000, and in other sports like netball, volleyball, swimming, modelling, and dance. She found her group of friends — a family to her.
She was living with her eldest sister and brother-in-law. When work opportunities came up, Becky moved with them. School Certificate year. Extra pressure. High stakes. But she was doing it — playing rugby in the 1st XV at South Otago High School was one of her best memories.
She was standing on the East Coast at Curio Bay — facing the rising sun — when her mother's best friend arrived with the police. And told her. "Your mum died last night, love. Heart attack on the living room floor."
Just like that. Becky's world was turned inside out and sideways.
The people around Becky loved her very much. They asked if she was okay. But her family members were going through their own grief. Nobody had enough left to catch her.
Becky drew pictures on her exam papers and leapt out of classroom windows. A lot of the time she never went to school — too heartbroken to move, to function. She was rebellious.
She left school at fifteen. Moved back to Stewart Island to live with her father. Learned to pay her own way at a young age and learned hard work ethic from her dear dad.
She did what she had to do. No complaints. No map. Just one foot in front of the other, and the quiet determination of someone who had no choice but to keep going.
Too many late nights. Too much of the wrong things.
And then, at seventeen, her body said enough.
Becky had a frightening experience — severe pain, her heart racing. It was the wake-up call she never asked for and desperately needed.
That was when spirit intervened.
The light came through her. And everything changed — instantly, miraculously. She put down the cigarettes and never picked them up again. She walked away from everything that had been pulling her under. Not because she was strong enough — because something greater than her had finally reached in.
And then — slowly, stubbornly, beautifully — she rebuilt.
At eighteen she went to Australia, working on the Gold Coast with a wonderful Turkish family at their business. At nineteen she crewed on a boat called Affinity through Stewart Island, Fiordland, and Picton. She worked the Marlborough Sounds, stayed on a superyacht, and made her way to Gisborne — the East Coast of the North Island. First place in New Zealand to see the light. She was looked after by the Logan family.
Becky worked at Caltex, cleaned toilets, pruned vines, picked broccoli — anything that needed doing, she did it. She found herself an apprenticeship in painting and decorating thanks to the Taylor family. Working alongside large groups of men, holding her own, earning her place — she grew a backbone. And she came to appreciate hard work and the people who do it without complaint.
She completed her apprenticeship. Moved to Bulls in the Manawatū, working with a large commercial painting company in Palmerston North, thanks to the Beveridge family.
Then the year of 2018 she fell in love with Zane. She became a stepparent to her little sea bear.
In 2019, Veaux was born. 2020, she married Zane. In 2023, Mohi was born.
The kids are creative little beings — and they all leave their mark on what EASTERLY becomes. This is a family brand. Made together, by a family who loves deeply, creates freely, and faces whatever comes — together.
Becky healed herself with love — and with forgiveness. For herself. And for those who hurt her. She has learned to trust again. And now she sees the miracle of life — not just the wound in it.
The East has always found her. And she has always faced it.
EASTERLY was named for that force. Ancient. Unstoppable. Breathtaking.
And then she built it. The thing she needed at fifteen and never had. A beacon. A hand reaching back.
"My purpose was to be rock bottom. My purpose was EASTERLY."
There's a girl I know. She made it through. And she built something beautiful on the other side of it — so you would know that you can too.
The wound is the place where the light enters you.
You found this place for a reason. You belong here. You always did.
Breathe. 🐚
I never finished school. I left carrying grief — the kind that sits heavy in your chest and doesn't announce itself. It just lives in you.
So I worked. From 15 years old onwards. Stocking shelves. Cleaning toilets. Crewing boats. Pouring petrol. Picking broccoli. Waitressing. Painting and decorating. A miniature art gallery in a shed in the garden. And now — EASTERLY.
This brand was not built in a boardroom. It was built between nappy changes. In the quiet hours after the kids fell asleep. On the last ounce of energy I had left.
Family by day. Founder by night. No complaints. Just the work.
My quiet, fierce, determined wish is to stand beside Zane. To build something that honours what he gives every single day — so that one day this brand carries us both.
I didn't have a mother when I needed her at 15. But I've always had Mother Nature.
EASTERLY is not a hobby. It is not a side hustle. EASTERLY is a survival brand of the soul.
And if it helps even one person feel less alone in their survival — it was worth every late night, every early morning, every last drop.
With Love and Gratitude
To my husband, Zane — my partner, my anchor, my reason.
To my late mother, Elizabeth Cavanagh — forever in my heart.
To my father, Friday Cavanagh — thank you for always being there.
To my siblings and their clan — you know who you are. 🖤
To my whānau by marriage, Diane and Phillip Smith, my extended family, and my treasured friends — your love and support has meant more than you know.
To Joan Sheppard — the spiritual lessons you have shared have shaped me in ways I will carry for the rest of my life. Thank you. 🖤
To Jeni Barry — my dear friend, you taught me to make each second of life count. I love you and miss you. 🖤
It takes a village. I am grateful for mine.
To my three children — the greatest honour of my life is having you in it. Little sea bear — B Beep. 🐻 Little chap — Veaux. 🖤 Littlest fox — Mohi. 🦊
I could not have done any of this without you all.
— Becky, Co-Founder of EASTERLY™. Stewart Island | Rakiura, New Zealand.
EASTERLY is for Elizabeth — who left us at Easter time. 🖤 I dedicate EASTERLY to the confused twelve year old girl who watched every foundation crumble — and had no idea that something far stronger was being built underneath her. She couldn't see it then. She can see it now. 🖤
E is for the Garden of Eden — Rakiura. Where the spirit is alive. Where it has always been alive. Where it will always remain.