For anyone planning a visit to New Zealand’s North Island, consider making a pitstop in Havelock Bay. Nicola Lucas’s Bermuda-inspired brand, Aqua Designs, has launched in Hunt & Seek, a boutique “known for curating a carefully selected range of unique, high-quality fashion and lifestyle products”.

It’s a dream come true for the New Zealand-born designer who worked at fashion houses Nicole Farhi and French Connection in London, England, before moving to the island with her Bermudian husband, Ben.

Once here she put her skills to work for herself. Aqua Designs launched initially with ​​custom-made wedding and evening dresses but later morphed into a children’s clothing line which she continues to sell in Dockyard and online.

It is the “high-quality, stylish clothing and accessories” that form her womenswear collection that got Hunt & Seek owner Tamella Hunt interested.

The line is available at The St Regis Bermuda Resort, but Ms Lucas has always been interested in selling overseas as well.

“That's always been the dream. I've had the experience of working on the factory floor in a manufacturer’s ― I've literally been on a line where I've been sewing collars on shirts all day long and I've been in a factory where I've been cutting out stacks of 50 or 60 garments. So I’ve kind of worked my way up,” she said.

Back then, she never imagined that one day she would own her own fashion label, with her designs sold internationally.

“It has been a dream for the longest time to be able to branch out and to sell overseas, but I've never actually thought that I'd sell back in New Zealand. I was more on the lines of Miami or a Florida area,” she said.

Ms Lucas, who had become familiar with Hunt & Seek on visits to her family, was thrilled when the owner started following her on Instagram and liking her posts.

Back in New Zealand last year she took some samples into the store. “She loved them,” the designer said.

The clothing has only just been put on the store shelves, a decision made to coincide with the start of summer in the southwestern Pacific island country.

“It's great. It's very exciting and kind of a bit surreal,” Ms Lucas said. “It's hard to believe that my stuff is now in a store in New Zealand. It takes a lot of hard work. I keep trying to follow my dream instead of giving up on it, which would have been very easy to do many times.”

Apart from the boutique at the St Regis, Aqua Designs is available online. She hopes that her photo prints, which feature “the colours and landscapes of Bermuda”, will draw the attention of Hunt & Seek’s customers.

“I remember when we first got married, we brought a lot of stuff back from New Zealand to Bermuda and it was hilarious, they’d heard of the Bermuda Triangle so they drew a triangle on all the boxes,” she said.

“But there's actually, surprisingly, a little bit of a connection [between the two islands]. Back in the Seventies, when there were the riots here, many families from Bermuda actually moved to New Zealand. There's actually several people I've met here on the island who have family over in New Zealand.”

The designs have certainly gained attention from people visiting Dockyard.

“A lot of tourists like that sort of thing. Also a lot of locals like something different. It's not a big brand that you're going to get online overseas,” she said.

“I have a couple of customers that are from overseas and every time they come back to Bermuda, they buy stuff off me, and they love it, because when they go home people say, ‘Where is that?’ It's kind of a talking point, almost, the clothes that they're wearing and I've had several people say that to me.”

In New Zealand meanwhile, her friends have enjoyed watching the brand develop. An article about Aqua Designs Bermuda in the New Zealand Herald drew considerable attention.

“I remember when I first started going out with my husband, he was like, ‘One day you could have your own business here.’ And I kind of thought, ‘Can't see that happening’,” she laughed.

For six years she worked in marketing and made evening and wedding dresses in her spare time.

“It kind of grew from that,” Ms Lucas said. “It has been many years of trial and error; seeing what works. As with anything, you have to see what people are going to like and what they're going to buy.

“Some things are more popular than others and the photo prints are so popular. It will be interesting to see if I keep going or if I do something else.”

• Visit aquadesignsbermuda.com