Appropriately, the co-founder of Waikouaiti-based business Silkbody found herself rearing silkworms.
Despite 15 years of selling silk products, she had never come across any silkworms in New Zealand.
Now, thanks to the holiday hobby, it has put into perspective the effort required to produce the several hundred cocoons needed to make one Silkbody garment.
Before Christmas, Ms Cooper had an opportunity to source some silkworms from a science teacher in Auckland.
She jumped at the chance and 14 tiny silk caterpillars arrived in the post. She had to get some mulberry trees as they only ate the leaves of the white mulberry.
Her little charges were housed in a shoe-box - ''not very glamorous'' - and she fed them every four hours, throughout the day, with the chopped leaves which were ''demolished'' within about 30 minutes.
Once they were ready to make their cocoons, Ms Cooper cut up sections of cardboard from the centre of a wrapping paper roll and put them inside.
They started making their cocoons, which was one continuous thread, and that only took a few days. It took about three weeks for them to emerge as moths.
It had been a fun and interesting process and it put into perspective the ''huge amount of work'' that was involved in producing a silk garment, she said.
She intended trying to keep some of the silkworm eggs in the fridge, bringing them out again in spring and starting the process over again.
Ms Cooper ruled out creating her own silk for her products. ''They're definitely pets, I don't think I'll be going into mass production,'' she said with a laugh.
