The White Wardrobe

A small fashion business that came out of my own debutante ball. At 16, I started designing, renting and selling gowns to other girls doing the same.

Working with an experienced Melbourne dressmaker, I developed four designs and sourced a manufacturing partner in China to produce them. The model was simple: gowns were rented a number of times before being sold as samples, with a made to measure option also available.

Most customers came through social media, and over a few years the business served more than 120 girls.

It was my first real introduction to the fundamentals of business: product, pricing, customer acquisition and operations. It also showed me the freedom and opportunity that can come from building something of your own, while giving me a way to turn something I already loved, design, into a business.