Janet Bingham grew up in Scotland, and studied fashion design at Edinburgh College of Art. She has worked in the jeans industry since the early 1980s, designing for brands such as Lee and Lee Cooper Jeans. In 1997 she founded Bear Brothers specializing in denim household textiles, which became a best seller for iconic design retailer The Conran Shop. After emigrating to New Zealand in 2007 with her two sons, she created mens and womens denim ranges for various companies, and introduced skinny jeans to the Kiwi market. Three years ago the bears came out of hibernation and Janet relaunched the Bear Brothers brand merging her passions for household textiles and clothing, all of course, crafted from denim. In September 2019, Janet opened her first denim store in Devonport, Auckland. She has neither written nor illustrated a book before, but decided as with most things in her life - to give it a go.