Style: June 04, 2021

24 Style | Feature
The connection
Some people said it wouldn’t work with the Southern Alps as the divider,
but Nevé founder Tessa Lyes and her mum Vicki Bastion
are creating luxurious candles on opposite coastlines.
Words Shelley Robinson
It’s 5.30am at Vicki Bastion’s bed and breakfast in Blue
Spur, Hokitika. She heads to the kitchen where jars
with wood wicks wait, lined up like obedient children.
She flicks on the wax melter – the very reason she has
to wake up so early. It will take about five hours until the
wax to make Nevé candles is pourable.
Nearby is a small book in which Vicki neatly makes
notes from the last batch of candles she made, including
the all-important temperatures. Though the crackling noise
from a wood wick brings with it a gentle ambience, the
candles themselves are very “temperamental” creations,
even fussy about the ambient temperature of the room.
Finally when everything is perfect, she begins her seven
hours of pouring.
Is she a bit of a candle mad scientist? She laughs with
delight at the thought and her daughter’s voice chimes in.
“Perhaps, perhaps,” is Tessa Lyes’ reply.
This is only the start of the journey for a Nevé
candle. Once carefully packed into Vicki’s, Tessa’s or
her brother’s car, they have a 250km journey ahead
of them, winding up and around the Southern Alps to
Christchurch where Nevé and Tessa are based. It makes
for a beautiful image of these candles making a journey
from mother to daughter across the Alps. For Tessa, the
mountains have a strong link to her brand.
“Névé is the French word for when the young snow,
over millions of years, compacts down and forms a
glacier – it is very Southern Alps inspired,” says Tessa.