Very Excellent Habits

3 Australian Clothing Brands I’m Loving Sick Right Now

‘Did your dress for the wedding arrive???’

My friend rolled her eyes.

‘No! It got delivered to our front door without a signature and someone stole it off the front porch!’

I felt my friend’s pain. I had a similar thing happen to me last year. The postman rang the bell, shouted ‘Delivery!’ through the speaker and then left the parcel on the front steps of my apartment building and took off. My apartment building that was on the main street of a very trendy area of Melbourne, with big city levels of foot traffic. By the time I got downstairs some sticky-fingered douche bag with a penchant for Go To Skincare products had swiped my package of facial cleanser and cloth masks before I made it downstairs. Who even does that?

‘So what happens now?’

She told me she contacted the company just to let them know the package had been delivered without a signature which she hadn’t agreed to. Her email was super lovely and polite, she just wanted to let the owner know so she might be able to lodge a complaint.

But guess what happened? The owner said that as the dress was sales stock, she was trying to clear them anyway and she had a spare dress in my friend’s exact size. She posted it to her free of charge. The postage mix up wasn’t the business owner’s fault at all but she totally sorted it out. My friend was so happy she actually cried. She was already a huge fan of the brand and is now basically married to them.

I actually had a similar experience with Go To. It definitely wasn’t their fault but I messaged them to let them know that they might want to consider using plain packaging on their mailing boxes. Their current peach coloured boxes have ‘Go To’ emblazoned across them and it’s a bit tempting for cheeky thieves. They offered to replace the stolen products for me which just made me love them even more. I feel sorry for Australian businesses because our postage system is slow, expensive and pretty rubbish and I hate having to see the brands pick up the slack for this.

It feels like social media has encouraged people to complain about businesses more than compliment them. I have ten years worth of online writing experience and my anecdotal evidence tells me that most people are far more vocal when they’re angry than when they’re happy. It’s bonkers. I regularly experience excellent service in Australia and when it happens, I like to tell everyone because good businesses deserve more business don’t you think?

I love supporting small businesses, especially local ones so here are a few Australian clothing brands I’m loving right now.

Jericho Road Clothing

I discovered this brand late last year and now I’m obsessed. I’ve only bought one piece from them so far (The Daryll Braithwaite Dress) but I wore it to death over summer and I have every intention of buying this dress in every print they have next summer. The company is run in Brisbane and the styles and prints are designed in Australia. One thing I really love about this brand is how much sizing information they give for each garment. For the horses dress I bought there was like a page of instructions about how to get the perfect fit and when it arrived it fit like a god damn glove. I’m so stoked with this dress, it’s been washed and worn on repeat for months and still looks shiny and new.

Variety Hour

So weirdly enough, I don’t actually own anything from Variety Hour but the print designer of my favourite Kuwaii dress (featured in my quality clothing article) Cassie Byrnes is the owner of Variety Hour. I’ve been following her on Instagram for ages and I had no idea I’d bought her designs without even knowing it.  They’ve currently got a store open in Fitzroy, so if you’re in the area, check them out.

Wearing

Sweater dress from Frankie and Dash 

Tights from Muji

Boots from Ecco – I bought these maybe 5 years ago now and I’ve had them re-soled twice. Best purchase ever. They’re Gortex lined so they’re totally waterproof.

Scarf from Crochet Coach Kravitz Scarf Pattern – perfect for beginners if you’re wanting give crochet a crack!

Frankie and Dash 

These guys came on to my radar a few weeks ago when the owner contacted me and asked to send through some pieces. Full disclosure: This happens to me often and 99% of the time I send everything back because it’s not my style or doesn’t look good on me. They sent through a sweater dress, a summer denim dress and a strapless jumpsuit and I kept the lot. That’s literally never happened before, especially with gifted items. I’ve been wearing the sweater dress almost every day and the denim dress will definitely be a summer staple. As for the jumpsuit – that was a long shot but I couldn’t believe how well it worked when I put it on. I’m wearing it to a wedding next week so I’ll definitely snap a pic of it.

This outfit (the sweater dress), was worn for a day of a client work and then a cheeky weekend away for Mr Smaggle’s birthday. We’ve officially reached that point in our relationship where we kind of suck at buying each other presents and despite me wailing ‘WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY???’ at him every day for the past two weeks, he never specified a single thing. Except for a fancy cheese knife and chopping board that he already bought himself. Helpful. So I’m taking him away to Castlemaine for the weekend. We’re staying at a little Airbnb farmhouse and we’re going to wander around, drink coffee, read books and be adorable. Perfect weekend.

What are you up to this weekend? Anything fun?

Also what Australian clothing brands are your favourites?

P.S Also you should totally sign up for my newsletter. It’s full of cool stuff.
P.P.S Don’t forget Crochet Coach has a free trial offer period at the moment so make sure you sign up!

Exit mobile version