Morning everyone, So today I thought I would share the Tweedy story with you …
Tweedy Clothing began life down under in a garage in Sydney’s Northern beaches. Josh and I had met whilst travelling in New Zealand and had moved to Sydney together. We both worked 8-hour days and I did a yoga teacher training course most weekends. Whilst doing my teacher training, I was inspired to start making healing gemstone Marla’s, just for myself. The girls on my course loved them and all wanted one. This gave me the idea that I could start to sell them. Josh turned the garage into a workspace and we started making jewellery most evenings. Josh was inspired by this and decided that he wanted to start up-cycling tweed (this is where the name comes from) jackets, sewing patches and buttons onto them. We sold these items at local markets.
The next step
Josh and I are not people who can keep still, we had been in Sydney for nearly 2 years. I was missing my family in the UK and we were getting itchy feet. Josh said to me one day – “why don’t you apply for the Christmas market in the UK and we can move there for a while and sell the jewellery”. I applied and we got in! So off we went, left our jobs, packed our bags and decided to see where creating our dreams could take us. Christmas was a HUGE success; people loved our stuff and we loved doing it! We both felt we wanted to move more into clothing as we couldn’t find ethical fashion that we liked anywhere at a reasonable price. So we decided to go to India and find a partner and create the designs in our head.
India
We travelled India for 5 months trying to find the right person, who believed in the same values as us. We couldn’t find them, and we were about to give up when we came across a tiny shop in the Himalayan mountains. The fabric felt amazing and the man selling the items was genuinely lovely. He explained that the head tailor was in a small village in Rajasthan. So, we hopped on our motorbike and went to see him. We knew straight away that this was it! We met Raj. At the time he had four of his family working for him, all highly skilled tailors and also a master cutter, in a very small “factory”. He only did a few small orders and made money mainly from his shops, but he explained how he wanted to move into making larger quantities of products for one company. This was perfect for us! The bond was formed! We spent a lot of time going through the ideas in our head and discussing our ethos. Raj understood and agreed with our ideas. We had lunch at his village and met his family and the family of the tailors that now sew your garments. They were all happy and loved going to work so we knew this was the perfect match! The universe had aligned!
And the bird was born
We travelled back to Australia with our first designs, selling them at local markets and festivals, they went down a storm! Then we decided to apply to the UK festivals and got a whole summer circuit, including some huge events like Isle of Wight Festival, Boardmasters and Camp Bestival. We were lucky that year as a close friend from OZ was in the UK so he volunteered to help us along with my sister Lou and friend Jodie. We took the bird on the road and what a fun summer we had! We quickly learnt a lot of lessons and became super smart at adapting to the very variable English weather! We have memories of Tim (another friend) hanging from the gazebo on a cliff top in 80mph winds to keep it down 😊
Now
Three festy seasons in and we are still learning all the time! The family grew last year so we had to accommodate for an ever-growing force of nature which is Niyah. We bought Haroshi-Man (our truck) and adapted him to have living space and stock space. We live in Haroshi-Man from April to September travelling from event to event. Our team has grown. We have taken on Natalie and Meg and we have a solid team of volunteers Chole, Ems and Ness, as well as my mum Gayle, all of which you can meet here. To be honest we couldn’t have done this without our family and friends, they have helped us out so much, put up with crazy deliveries, sent stock out whilst we are in India, Australia and where ever else we end up, listened to our crazy ideas, looked after Niyah whilst we constantly load and unload vans, and so much more! So, THANK YOU, we LOVE you!
The Future
We want to be the first point of call for your ethical fashion needs, where you choose to come to purchase that new top and pair of pants! We are growing our online business, looking at ways to become more ethically conscious and sourcing cleaner, healthier fabrics. We want everyone to feel that what they’re wearing actually gives something back to the community it is made in, whether that be the workers, the fabric, or the planet, we want to help! So please Join us and become part of the TWEEDY Family Revolution
All our love Cacey, Josh and Niyah. xxx