Favourite cocktail? Spicy marg
Go-to lazy dinner? Tom-yum soup packet with some broccoli
Favourite season? Autumn, when it's not so hot but not too cold yet either
Where was your last holiday? Central & South America
Describe your style in one word. Minimalistic
How did you find yourself in this role? Did you always aspire to be in the fashion industry?
It was actually Covid-19 that brought me back to my hometown, Crescent Head. At the time, which was the start of 2020, I was doing a summer season on Lord Howe Island working and gallivanting around the stunning island off the east coast of Australia. When the island sadly closed due to the pandemic, it was time to come back home and figure out my next move. Charlotte, the Founder of By Billie, was a close friend of mine and when she wanted some help with packing orders and customer emails for a couple of days a week, I couldn't have been more excited to start! This quickly became a full time position and led to other creative roles and ideas within the company. A few years prior to all of this, I finished my Business Degree and always knew I wanted to work in the fashion industry. Being a Creative director and Designer was always a dream of mine and it's pretty cool how it came into fruition.
What would you say the most important creative ideology is behind By Billie and how do you preserve this in your designs?
We like to take risks, have fun with prints for women and kids wear with the notion in mind that kids are messy, playful and on the go around the clock so our clothes need to reflect this and withstand the daily adventures of parenthood and childhood. We have built an extraordinary database of customers over the years which is something we are forever grateful and proud of and we hope that this is reflected in our designs. I know this sounds a bit cliche, but our customers' reactions to new collections and their continual loyalty to the brand makes me so excited and motivated! When we launch new collections and look back on the stats of returning customers among new customers, it blows me away every time!
Are you able to give us a peek into the creative process behind collections, from conceptualisation to launch?
For the most part, we will start with a collection name/theme e.g Wabi Sabi, Loco Feliz, Postcards from the Playground etc. then we will create a moodboard consisting of concepts, colour palettes, seasonal trends + designs. This will be sent to our textile designers who will send back print concepts for the collection. Once these are finalised, it is time for sampling. One of my other favourite things about my job is conceptualising our campaign photoshoots, from location, props, talent and logistics, it's a beautiful finalisation of watching the collection come to life. PR, marketing and creating 'hype' ties it all together and makes our launch days so much fun!
Have you had to adapt this process over the years, or has it been able to stay relatively the same?
This is our usual process, with every year, we become better at this process. We are still learning and adapting everyday to new processes and integrations so what works for us now, may not work for us in 2 years.
Are you active in your search for creative inspiration or do you find it comes to you organically?
I would have to admit that there is no real method to our creative inspiration. Some days creativity is out of this world, and others, it's stagnant as hell (and usually there is no in between ahah). When we are on, our concepts are organically formulated based on places or things we love which helps ideas flow naturally.
Has there been any collections that ended up being a completely different concept to the original idea?
We have definitely had to change or adapt collections before the sampling process if we are struggling with the direction or don't have a clear vision of the original concept and it's back to the drawing board. If we aren't feeling it, we are good at putting it to the side and thinking of something else and I think that is very important.
Can you share what you find most challenging about designing clothing, especially for children?
We have many brands in our scope now, so I would have to say that it's coming up with new ideas that make By Billie stand out amongst the rest. Kidswear is so fun to design, you get to really experiment with colours, shapes and bring a playful aspect to the designs. Womenswear is a whole different ball game, we started integrating womenswear roughly 3 years ago now with the goal of matching mums with their minis - our women's collections now have almost been more popular than kidswear which is insane and very humbling.
Tell us about your proudest moment in your time with By Billie.
I am constantly in awe of the opportunities and people I have met and gotten to work with already during my time at By Billie. From our collaborations with influencers, other like minded brands and what we have in the pipeline coming up is a testament to why other brands and individuals want to work with us and contributed to why we are a successful Australian brand today. It makes me so proud to be on this journey. In terms of my proudest moment, I would have to say the entire 'Loco Feliz' collection from every last detail was my baby from start to finish and seeing it all come to life as well as travelling to Mexico for the Campaign was a real pinch me/highlight in my career so far. We had just signed with a PR Agency based in Melbourne, OneTwo Agency, and they were getting us in Editorial spreads in Marie Claire, WHO magazine etc. it was pretty epic seeing my designs in renowned publications and on high profile people.
