The year 2025 has been a year about courage, taking the first step and believing that just giving it go will be a worth while process. Furthermore, it has been less about polished outcomes and more about learning through doing—testing ideas, making mistakes, and slowly understanding what I want my practice, and my business, to stand for.
How did I start the process?
Sewing is something I have been passionated about since childhood. My great grandmother was a tailor during the second world war, her role was to mend and altered garments to extend their useful lives.
Starting the process, I placed ‘value proposition design’ at the centre of my start-up-as a formal framework to manage the messy and nonlinear process of capture value for the customer and business. An important part of this framework is to test the business ideas before going to scale.
The opportunity to work with Kaleidoscope (Coffs harbour) to sell my garments, has been a great way to prototype and test my designs and receiving feedback to inform my work. So far I have sold 42 pieces, and received a ray of encouraging feedback from purchasers.
What is sustainable fashion?
This led me to reflect on the value of my work—practical, emotional, and sustainable—and how that value extends beyond the object itself. Sustainable fashion, for me, is defined by how customers connect with my designs. They often share the personal connections they form with the garments, such as a tablecloth that evokes memories of childhood family dinners.
The idea of remake and transformation feel central to how I now understand sustainability. Repurposing isn’t just a technical process—it’s a mindset. It asks us to see potential where others see waste, to honour the life of materials rather than erase it, and to accept imperfection as part of the story.
As I move into the next year, I’m less interested in scaling quickly and more interested in deepening this approach. As part of my contribution to the 2026 Macleay Fashion Show, I will be refining the relationship between material, place, and purpose. Continuing to ask questions rather than rushing to answers.