Update: Good Day Girl is no longer trading.
There’s slow fashion and then there’s Good Day Girl – the Sydney brand that’s turned the traditional fashion production model on its head.
Good Day Girl was founded in 2013 by fashion design competitors Alexia and Sophie. The pair crossed paths through a mutual friend, and found they had similar concerns.
“We couldn’t get over the amount of waste created in our industry,” says Alexia.
“Every season we’d launch new collections and every season we’d have the same problems. Some of the sizes would go quickly, leaving customers frustrated, and some would never sell, leaving us with a heap of clothes with no home.”
Sophie adds: “We didn’t want to be in this business to do that. We wanted to create beautiful clothing that solves problems for women and makes it easy to get dressed in the morning.”
Bonding over their gripes with the industry, the pair decided to do something about it. Their joint label Good Day Girl would put an end to stock issues and excessive waste from seasonal collections.
Their new business model is made to order, allowing the brand to make just the right amount of garments in the right sizes and the right fit, every season.
Focusing on two seasons each year, Good Day Girl develops a number of styles that can be mixed and matched throughout the collection and with previous collections as well.
The clothing is made to last, using high quality fabrics mostly sourced from Japan, Italy and Spain and is designed to be worn and worn. For this reason the styles are timeless and classic.
Sizing is offered from size 6 to 18 and beyond, plus as part of the service hemlines are tweaked to the customer’s preferred length.
This makes for a bunch of very happy customers, it turns out, as Good Day Girl has a large number of repeat buyers that come in each season to try out the new collection.
How it works
The process is simple. Good Day Girl releases two collections each year. One around summer and one around winter.
When it opens, they send out the details to their customers and make the collection viewable online. Customers can then make an appointment to visit their salon in Paddington to try on the pieces, be styled in looks, choose their sizes and decide what alterations they need. They order them on the day.
Roughly eight weeks after this process, the pieces are ready for collection. All Good Day Girl styles are made in Sydney, Australia.
Changing to this process has allowed the designers to satisfy their clients while at the same time cutting down on waste from their collections at many stages of production. They’re able to plan exactly how much fabric they need, meaning minimal waste at the production stage, and they have very little leftover at the end of the season.
Everyone wins.
