Sustainability is a buzz word we are happy is around but it also leads to a lot of confusion. We believe it is not enough to say we make beautiful things you’ll love for years and we visit our factories overseas every once in a while. As designers, it is our responsibility to create with care. Beauty and substance go hand in hand. We are proud that we can share our story and tell you that at every stage we are creating with respect. We have integrity in our design process, the development stage, choosing fabrics, manufacturing, the transport between all those stages and respect for you as the buyer and our
relationship with you.
We are a close knit business based on friendship. We stand for family, community, fairness and kindness across everything we do. We are into a good vibes way of doing things and that comes across in our collections in how they come to be made and how they look. We understand the responsibility we have as designers to create products that you will have an emotional connection to. Pieces that you will fall in love with, create memories in and keep for season after season. That starts at the very beginning with the design, the colour, the fabric, the fit.
DESIGN
We design everything from scratch. We use sketches, previous design blocks, draping on a mannequin and our own bodies. It is emotional and considered design, a labour of love.
The more common alternative is to buy and copy a sample and
make minimal changes to take out difficult details (like our twists) to get the price down as much as possible.
DEVELOPMENT
After the initial sketch we work with our patternmakers and machinists to make the first ‘toile’. These professionals bring their years of expertise and experience to bring our ideas to life and make them even better in the process. The first sample is then fit on our fit model and our team and we continue to tweak the pattern and design until its perfect and we are ready for production. Our whole team is involved in getting this stage right.
Manufacturing in Sydney means we are able to see first hand exactly who is making our product. Our factory visits are done daily during production and we have worked with our community of makers for over 5 years. We are invested in their wellbeing and success because we need them to continue working. The industry in Australia is tiny so we are careful to nurture these relationships.
Domestic manufacturing fosters a healthy local economy, lifts employment levels, creates a smaller carbon footprint, contributes to less pollution and ensures our makers are paid and treated fairly.
When your clothes are cheap, someone is paying for it and it’s always the workers. Clothing production is its highest at $15 a day in places like Turkey down $1.15 a day in Ethiopia. In third world countries the wage is sometimes only enough for a roof over your head but you are sleeping on the floor with your children. Australian machinists average $300 a day depending on their experience. Beyond the wages, we know our machinists are working in safe environments without fear of building collapses, exposure to the elements and abusive management.
We make limited small production numbers so you get an exclusive product and we reduce the amount we are left with. We use biodegradable packaging for our garments and also in how we send our product to you when you buy online. We ship our bulk fabrics via sea freight as opposed to air. Our online order deliveries with Sendle are carbon neutral. Click here for more.
