Mentee’s Launch: GOLDI
The essence of GOLDI comes from the deep held philosophy of the founder, Helena Golden, that all people have a right to health and equality. To support this ethos, GOLDI will contribute 10% of all profits earned from the sale of GOLDI garments to the education of under privileged children. The dream: To contribute to others who may not have had the chance otherwise, to live their best life possible. GOLDI is starting its journey with a focus on fashion athleisure for strong females and role models for young girls globally.
1. What is your label and who is it for?
My label is GOLDI. An athleisure brand that is both functional and chic with a monochrome aesthetic. The designs, while have a stripped back simplicity, have striking details that will set the GOLDI woman apart. Designed for the urban woman between 18-35 who is is a strong individual, comfortable in her own skin, who leads a busy life and often wears active/athleisure wear styled up or down to suit many different daily occasions.
2. How long ago did you start the process of your own label?
I started just under a year ago.
3. What is the biggest thing you have learnt through the process?
When you start the process of developing your own brand and you haven’t come from a fashion, design and development background within the Australian fashion industry landscape, you really don’t know what you don’t know. Initially I wasted the first two months learning from my mistakes rather than learning from established experts in the industry. I would strongly encourage anyone who is thinking about starting their own fashion brand to engage with the Council of Textile and Fashion and take the Sample Room’s Fashion Label Launchpad course. It will cut through a lot of noise and accelerate your development process. It will also make you more credible when dealing with manufacturers because you learn very quickly how to speak their language and you have an appreciation for their process steps.
4. What is one thing you would tell another designer before they were starting out?
Firstly, I would say if you have a burning desire to produce your own fashion label, do it. Educate yourself so that you’re equipped to do it as well as you possibly can and don’t be afraid to acknowledge that there will be many days when you doubt yourself but never lose sight of your dream. Dreams are worth fighting for!
5. What was your next biggest hurdle?
While I’ve already been working on this for nearly a year I would say I’m only now at the starting blocks. It’s all about marketing, PR and customer experience from here. I need to build GOLDI brand exposure with the right messaging so the unique reasons to wear GOLDIare understood and bought into by my target customer. Once the GOLDI message is out there and customers buy into GOLDI, I want them to have a great experience, love the product and love how they look and feel with they wear GOLDI and then I want customers to come back again and again to GOLDI because I reward their loyalty and because GOLDI is so compelling.
6. Would you do it all again?
While I’m glad I’m at this stage, I would definitely do it all over again. Who wants to say ‘I wish I’d launched my own brand.’ You should do the things you want to do in life and never look back.
7. What is the one thing you would do differently if you had your time again?
I would have engaged with industry experts earlier to accelerate the process.
8. How did the Fashion Label Launchpad help you through this process?
I liked so many aspects of the fashion label launchpad course. I like the fact it is designed around contemporary lifestyle where you can choose your own pace of learning. I decided to binge the course just like you would do a TV series on Netflix. This is possible because it is an online distance course. I like how practical the course is. This course is about launching a brand and not about becoming a designer. I think this is a great formula. It set me up to actually deliver at every part of the life cycle of brand development.
Key hashtags I usually use are:
Activewear, Athleisure, Yoga, Yogawear, Brand, Fashion, Lifestyle, Streetstyle