Ducks on the Pond
A podcast for rural women... by rural women. Hosted by Kirsten Diprose and Jackie Elliott, they seek expert advice and the stories of other rural women on issues such as succession planning, motherhood, starting a business...running for politics and much more!
Ducks on the Pond
Why you’re allowed to care about the clothes you wear - Marion Saunders and Olivia Thwaites
When it comes to WHAT you wear, do you ever feel damned if you do care, but also damned if you don’t?
Clothing is not trivial, it’s actually an expression of self. This episode is not about needing to look like a supermodel or spend ridiculous amounts of money on clothes (gosh, there’s enough pressure on us as women to do that already!). Rather, it’s about how looking and feeling good has value - whether you’re a busy mum, struggling with changes to your body or just wanting to look good at work, including if you’re on a farm or worksite.
Our next guests aren’t here to tell you ‘how to look good,’ for them it’s more about how you feel and dressing to express your inner self.
Hear from:
*Marion Sauders - creator of ‘Maz Life Styles,’ an over 50s fashion influencer with 150+ Instagram followers, from Carinda NSW
* Olivia Thwaites - founder of Green Hip Workwear, Geelong VIC
Both guests noticed a need not being met, when it comes to women’s fashion. Marion’s kids helped set her up on Instagram ten years ago and she wondered, why doesn’t anyone look like me? So she started her own fashion account for people just like her. Now it’s enjoyed by thousands of women all over the world.
Olivia is a horticulturalist who was tired of having to wear uncomfortable men’s clothes to work. She couldn’t find anything decent for women, so she started designing and making it herself. Now you can find Green Hip workwear in stockists all over the country… and she’s just signed an exciting contract with Bunnings.
EPISODE SPONSOR: Gro Events Group - hear from founder Dimity Smith, at the end of this episode. Thank you for your support!
If you liked this episode you might also like:
- Is your farmwear or work tools sexist? - Chelsea Christensen and Liz Bresinger
- How to build a brand with a bigger purpose - Sallie Jones and Elizabeth Hermann
- Getting your next big idea off the ground - Angie Armstrong and Natalie Egleton
When it comes to fashion, oh my God, I am never going to tell you what to wear, because my fashion rule is there's no rules in fashion.
Kirsten Diprose:Often we are a minority and often the organisation is like there's only three of you and ten of the men, so you can just wear the men's gear. Hello, welcome to Ducks on the Pond, brought to you by the Rural Podcasting Co. Kirsten Diprose here and Jen McCutcheon is back in the chair with me. Hello, it's great to be here Now, This episode is sponsored by the Grow Events Group. Grow is your one-stop shop for rural and agricultural event management, event marketing and communications. They're based in Tamworth, but go all over country Australia. Now we've all heard of the phrase if you look good, you feel good, and they're right. Now, I'm not talking about needing to be a supermodel, especially for those of us who spend half of our life in a paddock. Sometimes looking our best isn't a priority, but our guests today are here to change that. They're all about making rural women and even city gals feel good about themselves. You're right, Kirsten.
Kirsten Diprose:You spoke to Olivia Thwaites, who runs the women's workwear brand Green Hip. Yes, she's a horticulturalist by trade and she knows firsthand how ill-fitting workwear can impact your day, and also just like boring colors and the same thing every day. So in an effort to change this, she's actually created her own line of clothing and it's just going from strength to strength. It's actually now being stocked in some Bunnings stores and even men are jumping on board, including Costa of Gardening, australia. He wears some of her overalls. And Jen. You spoke to Marion Saunders. She's an over 60 fashion and lifestyle blogger and she's a big deal on Instagram. I don't know how many followers does she have. Over the past 10 years, she's managed to grow her following to over 150,000 people. That's nuts, and she's called Maz Lifestyles and she is from Western New South Wales and is dedicated to empowering women of all ages and sizes through fashion. Exactly, let's meet Maz.
Marion Saunders:I'm 61. I've got four adult children. I've got 8.5 grandchildren which all arrived in the last seven years. They're nearly like, oh, a football team. I'm from Broken Hill, my husband's from Narrabri. We've just travelled around. We've lived in some great spots, but generally we've always been in the far west of New South Wales. In the last sort of, I suppose, 30 years and, yeah, for the last 14, we managed a large cotton cropping and cattle place which was like, yeah, it was very interesting and a lot of fun. Basically just a country woman. No one would know where Carinda is, but it's just like about three hours north of Dubbo, a hundred kilometres west of Coonamble and 80km south of Walgett. That's where I am and, yeah, that's just a little bit about me.
Kirsten Diprose:We've got something in common we're both A graders, because I was born in Broken Hill as well.
Marion Saunders:Oh, there you go, you're an.
Kirsten Diprose:A grader too. Now you told me at the start of this interview, not very tech savvy, but yet you've managed to create an Instagram empire teaching women, post-children, post-menopause, about fashion and fun. And how did it?
Marion Saunders:all start. Oh, I've always loved fashion. I've got four sisters and out of all of them I'm the youngest. I've always been the one that's loved fashion. I was the one that was going into my older sister's wardrobes and stealing their clothes and I was still at school and they were all working and it was like, oh my God, the fights we used to have about. She's taken my dress again. She's worn this. My sister will most probably be listening to this. She lives at Cobar and she was the worst one because she was at home when I was going in my teenage years. I'm so sorry, Anne, and I've always loved fashion. Sorry, Anne, and I've always loved fashion.
Marion Saunders:And I learned to sew at a very young age about six I think and mum's taught me how to use the machine and then I just hodled along and teenage years came and there was always something more exciting to do than staying home and sewing. But I've always loved fashion. I love dressing up, always particular about how I felt and looked. And then, yeah, got married, had kids and that never changed. But priorities change when you've got a young family, like they always come first, and I was on the back burner and was just growing up with young children. It does change the way you look at things, but I still love dressing up. Wherever we went, I always used to put the time in to do my hair makeup. But then when I'm home I'm a complete dag. I'm in tracky-dackies and a pair of Ugg boots and a cap and no makeup. That's home for me. But when I go out I love to dress up and take the time to put an outfit together. It's just what I've always done.
Marion Saunders:So how I got here was when we moved to the farm 14 years ago. It was crazy and we'd actually had a bit of a sea change to the Gold Coast for about five or six years because my husband, we bought a business because we'd always been on the farm and we thought, look, we want to change. The kids were all away at boarding school at the coast. So we thought we bought a national business and went up there. So when I moved to the coast I was missing connection and mates on the farm and when you live in the country, you've got your network of mates. You can ring up and say, look, I've had a shit day, I'm coming over with a bottle of wine. I got to the coast and I didn't have anybody, only the parents that I'd met through boarding and a few day parents. And then I remember I met a girl.
Marion Saunders:I took the courage. We were at drop-off one morning and there was this woman standing there and she looked a bit like me, because it's different when you're a boarding parent to when you're a day parent, like the boarding families great network, but when you're a day parent, you rely on people you know where you live, and so this woman was standing there in the crowd and I thought, oh, she looks a bit lost like me. So I just walked up to her and said hi, my name's Maz. Who's your daughter or where are you from? And we struck up a conversation and became great mates. Anyway, she came around for coffee one day. She goes oh my God, where did you get that furniture and where did you get that artwork and stuff? I said, oh, I just painted it and that was an old table I painted. She goes oh my God, you need to open up a shop. And I went oh, don't be ridiculous, who's going to come and see my stuff? Being at the Gold Coast, which is the hub of like, you've got shops everywhere you go that are selling. Anyway, so, long story short, I took a lease on a showroom with, had a big workshop out the back and I started Mazze Interiors and, oh my God, it went crazy, because everybody on the coast was a hard sell, whereas I just wanted you to come and enjoy what the shop had to offer, and I incorporated workshops and shopping tours and it was just such a wonderful time in my life.
Marion Saunders:We were really country people. You couldn't take us out of the country, but you couldn't take the country out of me. And so we had the opportunity to come back to this property that we managed for the last 14 years and, oh my God, all the stars aligned because it was just the best community to move back to. I didn't even know where Carinda was when we moved here. So, besides all that, came here and then we started working on the farm, managing it.
Marion Saunders:You know what it's like when you're off to side with your husband. You're doing I need you to go on a parts run, I need you to go and do this. That was me. I was just the odd jobs between cooking, running the household. I had four kids away. Some were at uni by that stage, so I was backwards and forwards the school stuff, because he was like hardly ever went past the front gate, so I was like always the one doing stuff while he stayed on farm.
Marion Saunders:And I remember when the kids started to come home for holidays and they said, oh mum, what do you do? I said I just feel lost because we lived in such an isolated area, because I was an out of the closest town, I said I just really miss my business, I miss the connection, I miss being busy, I miss sharing things. And they said you need to do a blog. So they hooked me up with the blog and said okay, there you go, write about what you want, share about what you want, teach people different things. And they said but to do this, you need to be on Instagram for people to find you. And I said what's Instagram? I'm only on Facebook to stalk you at schools. They set me up with the Instagram page and said okay, there you go, have a look at it, find your way around it and then you can incorporate and that's how people will find your blog page.
Marion Saunders:So then I started to navigate around Instagram and I got a handle of what it was all about, because I didn't even know anything about influencers I hate that terminology, but influencers and then I found these women showing fashion and beauty advice and I'm looking at them and I'm going I can't relate to you, I don't. That's not how I look, that's not how I feel, that's not how I dress and that's not how I feel, that's not how I dress. And then when I got a little bit of courage and put all the fear behind me and I thought I'll blow it, like I'm going to put myself out there a little bit and share a photo of an outfit, and I remember I was going to the Nyngan Ag Expo. It was the first photo I ever posted at Fashion Post and I had a big wrap on and boots and I got my husband to take the photo and I'm standing at the front, I look like I've got to stick up my bum, like trying to pose. And then I tell you what that?
Marion Saunders:That photo sat in my phone for about three days before I got the courage to post it. And then I posted it and I was so excited I got five followers. I went, wow, okay, and then I just explored it and then, I don't know, just found my own unique way of doing things. I shared a lot of the farm life and what I was doing on a daily basis, about Outfit of the Day, and it just slowly grew. And then, as it grew, I posted more things about fashion and things that I liked and make-up tutorials, and it just evolved.
Marion Saunders:I cannot believe if you'd have told me 10 years ago I'd be sitting here talking to you about how far I've grown my page and what I'm doing, I'd go get out of here, you bloody, not a chance in hell. So it's just evolved. It's been 10 years and it hasn't been easy Like. I've had some real hard lessons. I've learned a lot and the biggest thing I could say that I've always done is I've stayed true to myself because I've got values and because I value that what I'm telling you is truthful, it's honest. I don't. My word is my word basically, which is what most country people are. I think that's what resonates with a lot of people and of most women you connect with?
Kirsten Diprose:are they local and farming women and rural women, or have you got people all?
Marion Saunders:over. I've got a lot in Australia, but half of them are women overseas. So it's amazing that I've got women in Europe, like in Paris and France. I've got a lot in America, Brazil, a lot in New Zealand. It's amazing that I've got this community and it just evolved from dedication and the love of what I do.
Marion Saunders:And how do you come up with the content? I just wing it. I never know what I'm doing from one day to the next. These people I used to follow, all these Instagram experts that say you've got to do this and you've got to do this, and I'd go really Like why would you do that? So I take no notice to what anybody on Instagram tells you should be doing.
Marion Saunders:I just do what feels right for me and if you like it, then that's great. If you don't, don't follow me, I don't really care, because every day I get up like sometimes I do have a bit of a plan. Sometimes I'll be really organised for the week, especially if I'm doing some collabs. I know things are on a certain day, but I generally don't. I don't have a plan. I just I do a lot of content on days when I don't have my grandchildren here and I love it when I get to make those funny reels. That is the stuff I love to do the most because it just sometimes it takes me forever to get through them, because I just piss myself laughing so much when I'm doing it.
Kirsten Diprose:You have a good prune, truth I do I crack up?
Marion Saunders:I'm going oh shit, this is funny.
Kirsten Diprose:Did you ever think, when you were watching Kath and Kim all those years ago, you'd be?
Marion Saunders:mimicking them. I've got one I want to make, but I know it's really funny. I know it's going to take half a day to make it, because there's three characters in this one and it's Kylie when Kylie was getting married, you know, when Kylie Minogue was Ebony. Yes, I so want to do it, but I know it's going to take half a day and I've got to be. When I do that stuff, I've got to have the house to myself. I can't do it when people are around, because if anybody's here it's just not the same vibe. So I can only do that when I know no one's going to turn up or I've got no one in the house.
Kirsten Diprose:How important is it? I guess, as a rural woman who's just had babies and I remember during COVID I went to go to town and my husband was like are you really wearing that to town? How important is what you're doing for women? Just to have inspiration, just to remember that. Just take a bit of time to put on a bit of lippy and it'll make you feel better as well, as I guess it's a bit June Daly Watkins too, isn't it? A lot of this stuff's gone by the by, but just taking pride in ourselves when we're so exhausted how important is that?
Marion Saunders:It is important, but it's not the be all the end all. I've been there days where I've felt like crap and I've had to go to town and there is nothing wrong Like I've been there. The best thing I did is just buy a decent pair of town boots, because I was wearing mud covered, bloody bloodstones and that's okay. But I bought a pair of happy Mary boots I think they were recently and they're my town boots. So if I've got them on I'm feeling a bit happy and a bit colourful. I do wear a little bit of a tinted moisturiser. That has been my saving grace. It's not make-up, it's just a little bit of a tint on your face and it's great.
Marion Saunders:But other than that, oh my God, cap's your best friend. I live in a cap when I go to town because there's just days you don't have time to do your hair. Buy a cap if you're a hat person, a cap that you like. I wear a New York Yankees one or your favourite chemical rep or whatever. But I'm a dag when I go to town some days. But then I have my town clothes. Like today, I'm in my striped shirt and a green jumper. That always makes me happy and I would wear this to town.
Marion Saunders:Mind you, I have got a pair of stripy tracky-dacks underneath. You can't see those because I'm sitting at the table, but there's nothing wrong. You don't have to be glamorous when you I'll be the first one to say I've gone to town as a dad, with a bloody vest on and a jumper and a cap and looked completely washed out. But that's where we live and you've got to be comfortable. Let's face it, I will wear jeans if I'm going somewhere special. I've got a couple of pairs and I absolutely love them. When I wear them I feel fabulous. But I wouldn't wear those to town because they'd cut me in half by the time I got to Coonamble. But when I've got them on, I just feel so pulled together, Everything's in the right place. I love it. But I've got my town jeans and they will just have you in comfort all day, driving in a ute and without being rude.
Kirsten Diprose:You are an older woman. On Instagram we see so many skinny women with bodies that are virtually unattainable and that. How important is it for you to be real and for you to get on there with your wrinkles and make up free some days and just talk to your followers and connect with people.
Marion Saunders:That's how I felt and half the reason I started my page was because I was watching these women and I'm looking at them and I'm going who the heck who are?
Dimity Simth:you.
Marion Saunders:My page has been going for 10 years, so I would have been 50. I just turned 50. And I'm looking at them going. Oh my God, I've got wrinkles. Why You've got no wrinkles. What have I done wrong? Oh my God, I've really let myself go. And then I went hang on. I live my life in the country. I've raised four children and that is stressful enough, let me tell you. And I just went wow, I don't look like that. I don't dress like that, like they were just all.
Marion Saunders:And please don't get me wrong, my big thing with my page is and this is my motto you do you boo. Everybody's on a different journey. We all want to feel different, we all want to look different and there's no specific formula and I will never preach on my page about what you should do, how you should wear things, your outgoing appearance Is it such a personal thing? And some women want to go and have Botox and fillers. You do that. I am not going to judge you because, who knows, I might have them later down the track, but in saying that, I was looking at these women and going where's the women that look like me? Where are the size 14 to 16 that have had kids that have got wrinkles that look like me, and that was half the motivation to start my page. And so when I was doing this, I was getting women messaging me going thank you so much for what you're doing. It's so nice to see someone like me. And then I mean I get them daily.
Marion Saunders:And then there was this one message I got a couple of years ago from a woman. It was the daughter of a mother and she said that since her mother had started following me, she'd noticed her mother was starting to take a lot more care and pride in how she looked and she felt, whereas before she wouldn't spend any time on her hair or how she looked or bought clothes. She never bought new clothes. And she said I have to thank you for giving me my mother back. She said because we went shopping the other day and mum bought some new clothes and she went and had a haircut and she tried some new makeup. And she said the difference in her mother's personality had slowly started to change since she started to take these little steps of finding herself again and loving herself more. And oh my God, that just brought tears to my eyes reading that and I just went because you don't think you're making a difference.
Marion Saunders:I don't, but it's until I get these comments and messages from women saying just thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I just love what you're doing. You're representing people how they want to see themselves when it comes to fashion. Oh my God, I am never going to tell you what to wear, because my fashion rule is there's no rules in fashion. It's like where it starts from the inside, if you're wearing something that makes you feel good, like. I put a post up this morning about this dress that I'm planning to wear to the races, and I put that dress on and I instantly my heart took a flutter because I just felt fabulous in it. And it's like when you put something on, whether it's casual, whether it's dressy, whether it's just a great pair of bloody tracksuit pants. Betty Basics love them.
Marion Saunders:You put them on and you might be at home doing nothing, but you still feel good because you've thrown that long sleeve t-shirt that had all the stains on it and the kids where they've drawn and paint on your t-shirt. You've thrown that and you've got a new one on, but it's still a house t-shirt, but you feel good.
Kirsten Diprose:I guess we can't get through talking about social media without trolls and haters, and I guess haters gonna hate and is your motto, just to not take yourself too seriously and, like you said, if you don't like it, log off oh, exactly, I used to let it get to me and I would try.
Marion Saunders:Over the years I've had some shockers like, oh my god, just, and these weren't trolls. I'd actually go and investigate their page and these were women that were on social media like, just women. Like you can pick a scam spam accounts from like just by looking at it. But these were women that had proper accounts. Over the years I've just learned. I've tried to say, look, that's not very nice, why would you say that that's just very hurtful and try to turn them around. But I've just worked out now, if they're that vindictive and they have got that malice in them to say that, just come out and say it, then I don't want them, so I block them. I don't even give them the time of day, I just block them.
Kirsten Diprose:How did you feel when you went through the change and all that and after having kids? Did you always maintain your style and that, or did you find you did go through a bit of a rut?
Marion Saunders:Oh, I didn't even know. I was back in the era when nobody talked about menopause. I didn't even know I was going through menopause. The only thing I thought with menopause is you don't get your period, because my mother she was like they never talked about anything like that Change your life. Back then it was called the change of life, that's right, and I would have been about 48. My husband remembers it more than me, because I didn't know what I was going through.
Marion Saunders:I suppose I didn't change how I dressed, but I definitely know things felt differently when I wore them. So I changed to like looser tops and pants that weren't as tight around my belly, because I couldn't wait on and I just, yeah, and I went for more natural fibres because I was hot sweats and things like that. So I went with a lot more clothes that were linen and cotton and because we were in the cotton industry, we always wore cotton and, yes, yeah, mainly just went with the natural fibres and what felt comfortable, if that was like floaty top, not tucked in, which is a little bit different to how we're dressed now.
Kirsten Diprose:And is that something that you're conscious of and have it front of mind when you are making some of your videos? And that's the audience you're talking to, as well as a lot of other people.
Marion Saunders:Oh yeah, I show options. I show look, this is what it looks like. But the thing is, back then that was how it was done. There was no social media, so you had nothing to go by all magazines, but then the magazines were all like size 10. So there was no comparison.
Marion Saunders:And now there's just so much to help women and to help women feel so much better about their bodies and showing you different styling tricks and how to wear something that still, even if you have put on weight and it's not how you normally would feel just by doing a few little things or tweaking something, you still look fabulous. But you're more comfortable. And gone are the days where you look at the number on the clothes. Don't look at the number, you go by how it feels and fits. Because if you wear something and you try and squeeze into that size 12 or whatever you think you used to be, it's going to show. Go up to the 14 or the 16 or the 18 and it's going to fit your body so much better. You're going to feel comfortable and it's going to look heaps better.
Kirsten Diprose:And I guess I saw one of your posts recently that was funny and you're like, oh, these still fit me 10 years later, and they're earrings, yep.
Marion Saunders:So remembering that. But they're things like a scarf or something. You just it makes the world of difference Just you can take a plain outfit, just put a scarf on a pair of earrings and bang, you change an outfit completely. But that's me Like someone I had to do an interview the other day and they said what would be your go-to outfit that would get you out of anything if you could pack things. And I went pair of good jeans, a white linen shirt and a pair of boots and a hat, like at the door, because I wear hats, I love hats and you're ready for anything.
Kirsten Diprose:I love Maz' enthusiasm and zest for life and just the ability to not worry about what others think. Yeah, I really resonated with her and her style. Despite being in a different demographic, I know my body's definitely changed since having children and a big part of postpartum care is making sure you give yourself time to still put on a bit of lippy and a nice dress or jeans to go to town. Yeah, I struggled after my first child with the change of body and finding clothes that fit and just being okay with not fitting into my clothes for a while. I think it's true in that we do put ourselves last. I remember I hadn't worn makeup in so long after my baby that when it was my 30th birthday and my son was about one, he saw me with a full face of makeup and burst into tears because I think I freaked him out. But I think finding clothes that make ourselves feel good is really important, like it can have such a positive impact on many facets of our lives, and that's what our next guest, Olivia Thwaites, sets out to achieve. She couldn't find feminine workwear to suit her figure, so she went and designed her own.
Kirsten Diprose:I actually grew up on a farm in the Otways and I absolutely love the land. It is my calm and peaceful place. So my parents still live in the Otways in Kawarren and we try to get down there as often as possible and, yeah, so I have the utmost respect for farmers and people living in, yeah, in the outback or in rural settings. And what did your parents do in the outways, which, if you're not from Victoria, it's down the bottom, would you say it's south of Colac? Yes, south of Colac, it's in the bush, so it's probably only about a half hour 45-minute drive to the coast. So lawn between sort of Colac and lawn, I suppose, is a good way to describe it.
Kirsten Diprose:Yeah a little bit west of Melbourne and it is beautiful, these big trees yeah it's absolutely stunning.
Kirsten Diprose:So my father was a primary school teacher, so it was a hobby farm about 150 acres, but my brother now manages the farm. But at the height of the farm, mum and dad had 200 sheep and about 50 cattle. So dad taught himself how to shear. He had a video the DVD player teaching himself how to shear. He did a remarkable job. And then, of course, us, as the kids I've got two older brothers were roped into herding the sheep into the yard and then sweeping out the dags and all of that and then clearing through the walls. So, yeah, your dad would probably have been a youtube sensation, like if youtube was around back in the day. Oh, he would have absolutely. And those poor sheep would come out in the early days. We'd all be standing around laughing that have bits hanging off them, and over time he was just like, yeah, he did such a great job but, yeah, phenomenal.
Kirsten Diprose:Now you live in Geelong. Now tell us what you do in Geelong. Yeah, so I am the owner and creator of Green Hip Workwear. So what we do is provide women with clothing that expresses their sense of worth and enhances their sense of identity. Yeah, I've created all of the products and developed the fabrications and yeah, we have the complete range of pants, shorts, shirts, overalls, shortalls, hats, beanies, yeah, and yeah, there's so much more to come. So, yeah, and you're wearing this super cute white overalls right now, which I'm hoping is one of yours. Yes, it is absolutely one of mine. We launched the white, pale pink and Hy-Vee's orange about a year and a half ago and we launched this for painters and interior designers and so forth, but absolutely anyone can wear them. Yeah, that's what we're really loving. But I'm also a mother. But, yeah, we are a regional city. Yeah, but I'm also a mother, but yeah, we are a regional city. Yeah, I love Geelong one of my favourite cities, actually.
Kirsten Diprose:So what was the reason for starting a workwear business for women? So it was absolutely out of sheer and desperate need for clothing. So I'm a qualified horticulturalist, actually, and I'm very grateful to have a very good size garden. So at any time I can be, I'm out there just putting my hands in the soil and just earthing myself, so working as a horticulturalist.
Kirsten Diprose:Back way back in 1997, when I started my apprenticeship in horticulture in Melbourne, it was then that I was like you've got to be kidding me. I have to wear men's clothing to work every day? Surely not. And then all the women I was working with were like, yeah, there's a women's fit, but it's worse. You probably want to go with the men's and fast forward to 2024, women are still to this day, who don't know about green hip, are still wearing menswear because the menswear brands, who have tried to change their women's fits and everything, still haven't got right, so they're still just choosing to wear a men's fit. So, yeah, it's for me.
Kirsten Diprose:I just knew that there's got to be better for women and I knew that farmers there's always a better for women, and I knew that in farmers, there's always a woman on a farm. Look at most workplaces there is a woman, and often we are a minority and often the organisation is like there's only three of you and 10 of the men, so you can just wear the men's gear, and to me that's not good enough. I do believe that clothing is the outward expression of a person's sense of worth and it's the visual validation of a person's sense. Good enough. I do believe that clothing's the outward expression of a person's sense of worth and it's the visual validation of a person's sense of identity. And so when you're rocking up to work every day feeling really uncomfortable and not feeling valued. Yeah, you just don't have a sense of belonging, I suppose, and like you're not worth anything. It's interesting because I think there's a view that, oh fashion, it's vanity when it comes to a workplace, whether that's in a garden, on a farm or in a trade.
Kirsten Diprose:That it's all about practicality and don't be so yeah, precious, yeah, precious silly or pressure of yeah, you're lesser if you say anything about what you wear. Absolutely. And there's this real and it's changing. I think women are definitely feeling more empowered to speak out about their worth. But definitely back in my day I would never have approached my manager and said these clothes don't fit me.
Kirsten Diprose:There's a real sense of suck it up, girl, like what's the difference? I'm concerned about how you look. Whatever we're out here in the dirt, why are you caring about how you look? Absolutely? But what is so fundamentally important and to understand is if you were to walk out on the farm wearing a potato sack, how do you think that would make you feel? So it's actually about how you feel. It's actually oh, I feel so comfortable, like a fabrication, soft to touch, it's stretchy. As soon as people touch it, they're like oh. So it's actually about how you feel and naturally, if you feel comfortable, you look stylish or you look great, and so you hold your body in a different way.
Kirsten Diprose:And yeah, I think it's a conversation that definitely needs to be had in a lot of workplaces, but thankfully there are a lot of organisations that are jumping on board with Green Hip and going yes, we see this. We hear our female employees. They're really unhappy. We want to do what's good for them and it helps retain their staff as well. It helps their morale, it helps their confidence, it helps them work better. So it is an element to our day-to-day living, whether you put your pyjamas on for bed or you put a cocktail dress on. So why shouldn't there be workwear for women? Yeah, yeah, I did an episode. Yeah, it's about a year or two ago for Ducks on the Pond. It's worth going back and having a listen, but it was. Why is our workwear and tools and farm tools sexist and and it looks at.
Kirsten Diprose:You know just how obviously everything was designed for men. So workwear was one of them. But even just like the equipment that we use, sometimes it's too long, with women being a little bit shorter, or if it's like a fuel pump. They're made for man's hands, like everything, and we always have to adjust to that.
Kirsten Diprose:And our bodies aren't even built for that. And I spoke to this amazing woman in America who she and her business partner, another female designed a hoe a gardening hoe for women, yeah, which you're probably interested in. Yeah, that actually fits women's bodies Absolutely. And I think there's research that, for example, seatbelts when seatbelts have been designed, there's research that's gone into children and men, but not women. Belts have been designed. There's research that's gone into children and men, but not women, and so, consequently, women have higher fatalities than men and children. So it's really interesting how, I think you know you've got the patriarchy, and that definitely plays a part in what society has been provided with tools and clothing. Yeah, and who's important? I had an interesting conversation with a store owner. So we have over a hundred stockists now, Every one of those stores. We had to have a really in-depth conversation about why it's so important to have a women's only brand in your workplace store. But one person in particular said to me oh, yeah, we supply the ambulance statewide Victoria and, through some questioning, explored that, yeah, majority are women.
Kirsten Diprose:And what about the clothing that they're wearing? Oh, it's a men's fit, but they just have to suck it up Like they see blood every day. So surely they can deal with this. And my tummy churned that kind of real attitude of they can suck it up Like they see blood every day. So surely they can deal with this. And my tummy churned. That kind of real attitude of they can suck it up Like why it's not necessary. You know there are actually other options, so why not explore that? So, culturally we've got a long way to go actually, and I also think I know there are some women who really don't care about what they're wearing, and that's totally fine, and there are other women who do. But why isn't that fine too? Absolutely, I think those women that are fine with it in general sense and from experience of seeing it, because we fit out hundreds of women, you know those women are probably have a body shape a bit more similar to a man's body shape, so they maybe don't have the hips, they don't have the breasts and the waist, and that's fine. So they generally can fit into either a men's fit or the women's fit that they've created.
Kirsten Diprose:But what we're very well known for is fitting out women of all body shapes and sizes. So we go from size 6 to 24. These overalls actually have an adjustable waist, so there's 16 buttons on the waist, eight on each side, and this is adjustable too. So it's what we designed that for pre, during and post maternity. But what we found and we called it our all women overalls is that actually we're catering from teenagers right up to 92 year olds. So I had a 92 year old come up to us at the Flower and Garden show and say, oh, I wear my overalls every day in the garden, and we were just like so thrilled that we're not just pigeonholing like one demographic. Yeah, so you've won some awards, or you were even nominated for a Telstra Business Award. That's pretty exciting.
Kirsten Diprose:Yes, that Business Award, that's pretty exciting.
Olivia Thwaites:Yes, that's right, it's very exciting. It's quite a remarkable process, the Telstra Business Awards. There's five stages, so we made it to the fourth stage. So we were state finalists for Victoria, for Accelerating Women category. Yeah, pretty awesome to be recognised for all the works that I've done over the years and my team have done as well. So, yeah, it's pretty awesome. I feel like this could be a whole other episode. But how did a horticulturalist get into like workwear and fashion? And design how did you navigate.
Olivia Thwaites:That it's crazy, isn it? It's so crazy. So it was. It was a strange sort of journey. My husband and I decided when we got married that we wanted to do something different, so we moved to Bangkok with his work. He worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers. So, yeah, we were really fortunate enough to be expats in Thailand and, obviously, being in the land of tailors, I was working. I was doing volunteer works five days a week for a landscape architecture firm designing islands in Fiji and the Maldives and all sorts of amazing stuff. But yeah, so it was there that this idea just kept hitting me on the head, just saying you're in the land of tailors, have a go.
Olivia Thwaites:So I knew exactly what the garment needed to do and how it needed to behave, like how deep the pockets need to be and so forth, and I started working with a cotton stretch fabric. So Green Hip was actually the first workwear company in Australia to use a cotton stretch fabrication and now all the brands are doing it. We were the first in Australia to do an elastic waist as well. So on two of our trousers, three of our trousers actually we've got an elastic waist. So that was purely because I know that women's weight fluctuates and it's just a bit more practical when you're bending down a lot. There's no gaping. And, yeah, we were the first to do overalls that cater for maternity wear. That's how it evolved, so I've had to learn so so much.
Olivia Thwaites:That was back in 2007. So that's when I started developing the products and I just started with green, hence the name Green Hip, because that's what I wore as a gardener. Back then, everyone wore like plumbers were blue, gardeners were green, and I just had pants original, which we've still got now uh, shorts original and a short sleeve and a long sleeve, and that was it. That's what I launched with. So it's just over time. It's grown. So now we've got 500 SKUs and, yeah, just growing the size range and colour offering and the products.
Olivia Thwaites:The key thing is that we listen to our customer. So these overalls came because women were asking for overalls. Yet I've had workwear stores say, no one wants overalls. No, we're not buying them and they're still, to this day, some of them not stocking it, but it's our top three bestseller. Yeah, and women love them, but they could create it for them.
Olivia Thwaites:Yeah, they look really cool and obviously really practical as well. Yes, and that's the thing, like my daughter always says yeah, mum, you're a practical mum, I'm very practical, it's got to be. It has to fit all the practicalities and the functionality and then then you can bring style into it at the end as well. But you see this here there's an elastic. I don't know if you can see that elastic strap. Yeah, so a woman came up to me at the flower and garden show pre-covid, saying if you ever do overalls, make sure you do this. And that's just been a game changer, because when you bend down, it just moves, it doesn't quake in the wrong places. No camel toe, that's right, there's not a camel toe here.
Olivia Thwaites:That's the tricky thing about, like overalls or dresses, fitting the top half and the bottom half in women and this leads into my next question. I think there's just a more variety of body shapes, so it could be changes, post-menopause, all of those things. How do you cater for that? Yeah, look, it's challenging. I think that's why we've launched so with different styles, because, especially over the last 10 years high rise and mid rise, straight leg, narrow leg, that sort of come about You're never going to get absolutely everyone, but 99% of our customers who try on green do buy. So that's pretty awesome. But yeah, I suppose it's just about so.
Olivia Thwaites:Way back in Thailand, what I did was I gathered all my expat friends and lined them all up, did all the sizes and they gave me the feedback, and so I spent so much time tweaking everything, even the button placement on the shirt. So I've got women who say now cannot wear a work shirt, any type of work shirt, but I can wear a green hip and it doesn't gape, and that's purely because I spent a lot of time working out okay, where does the placement need to be? And I put more buttons in too than a men's shirt. It's less buttons, so it's obviously the space is bigger for the gape, and that's where it comes into emotional safety as well, like it's all good to have the physical safety, the high-vis tape, shirts and so forth, but women on the work site should be feeling emotionally safe too. And if they're gaping and even if you've got something underneath, you still feel like you're exposing yourself.
Olivia Thwaites:Yeah, and it just doesn't look good.
Kirsten Diprose:No, we always test it on real women, so working outdoors and myself too, which you know, yeah, and the other feedback. So I just absorb everything that everyone's sharing with me over time and we have a big list of comments and so forth and we can draw from that. Another comment was that a woman said to me once and I'm not big-breasted, I'm really grateful that she mentioned this to me. She said'm not big-breasted, I'm really grateful that she mentioned this to me. She said make sure it's bigger here, it's not too small where it's cutting through my boob, because then I feel like I'm exposing myself as well. So we made sure that when we were fitting out the overalls in the early days back in 2020, so we did this during COVID yeah, just fitting out different body shapes and sizes and checking, yeah, the torso is challenging. For example, my sister-in-law she has to have this all the way up, whereas I've got this all the way down because I'm quite tall. But I think we've pretty much nailed it.
Kirsten Diprose:Yeah, and men, wear your gear. Yes, they can. And actuallyosta from Gardening. Australia loves our overalls. Yeah, cool, he's wearing our pale pink and our bright orange. He also wears the pets. He wears the higher rise SKO Flex, which has an e-patch. Yeah, absolutely. We've got a man that I know of that works in a vineyard, so he and his wife both wear the khaki overalls. They look super cute, so yeah.
Kirsten Diprose:I remember if you're a guy who also cares about fashion and you're spending every day in a garden or like, for someone like Costa, it's his job, he's probably. Oh, thank goodness I can get a different color other than the three that are otherwise available. That's right and the color is key. Kirsten, we're going bigger with color, colorful shirts and the color is just I don't know. People just get really excited about it, especially Costa, because he loves these pretty out there colourful things.
Olivia Thwaites:Yeah, it's really cool.
Kirsten Diprose:Oh, that's cool getting Costa to wear your stuff. Where are you stocked and what have been some of the wins in terms of getting into those bigger markets? Yeah, absolutely. So. We're stocked in a lot of independent workwear stores and a couple of hip pockets and totally workwears and so forth. But the biggest win I would say so far to date has been working with Mitre 10 and the Mitre 10 group and the home hardware group. They have just totally embraced green hip. They have a lot of women that work in their stores who are wearing green hip as well, as they have a lot of customers that work in their stores who are wearing green hip as well. As they have a lot of customers that are women going into their stores as well. Yeah, they've been fabulous to work with.
Kirsten Diprose:You know it is my mission to be stocked in every regional, town and city so women can walk into a store, try it and buy it, not have to order in. So that's yeah, that's my big mission. So we're at 100 at the moment. We've got a long way to go yet, but yeah, we're chipping away at it. So that's the stockists. But then also we do supply Zoos Victoria. We supply DECA statewide. So the Department of Environment, energy, climate Action.
Kirsten Diprose:Yeah, in Victoria.
Olivia Thwaites:In Victoria. Yep, that's right. We're also supplying Kings Park in WA Botanic Gardens there, botanic Gardens in Melbourne, sydney, lion, nathan Breweries in Australia and New Zealand.
Olivia Thwaites:So yeah, we do also work with a lot of bigger companies as well. So, yeah, and from the beginning it had to be commercial. So I've only recently launched P Pale Pink because as a gardener, I didn't want to wear the token pink. I want to be like blokes, like I don't want to stand out, like I'm a girl, but people were asking for it time and time again. It's okay, let's just do it. It felt like quite a big risk, but they have just gone crazy.
Kirsten Diprose:So yeah, that's something.
Kirsten Diprose:I'd wear just around my garden. I'm not a professional gardener or anything like yeah, just just something I'd wear for sure. Yeah, absolutely. And I think the thing is too we're not just tailored for women in traits, we're actually. We're worn by teachers, zookeepers, parks, and.
Kirsten Diprose:But then you've got women in the health department, so nurses who work in public hospitals that can wear a little bit more of a sort of casual cargo. You've got disability carers or aged carers as well. There's a lot of contractors out there that do the like home care and so forth. Surely, childcare would be something for you, like, as in any practical, but you still want nice clothes when you're you know absolutely, that's it, that's it.
Kirsten Diprose:And so what we know is that 52 of the population of women and 48 of the workforce are women and we cater to most of those industries. So with our range now so yeah, it's, it's a pretty exciting opportunity for women to actually be able to work in comfort and safety and style. Well, I love your mission and thank you so much for talking to us today, and good luck in getting stocked all over the country. Thank you, and I think it's such a big mission on one hand, but it's so not hard, for it's not a big ask, is it that if we want to buy workwear, we can walk into any workwear store?
Kirsten Diprose:and have a women's range. Absolutely, that's it. And I think the problem is with a lot of the workwear stores is that they only their foot traffic of women is quite low, but that's most likely because of what they're offering. So if they actually offer Green Hip and they do they get a higher traffic of women. We have stores now saying to us who have had it for 12 months, two years yes, we get so many more women into our store now. It's an incredible opportunity for the stockists to grow their revenue, to keep their customer service really top notch, because those women are having to walk around the store and go oh no, that doesn't fit. Oh, I'll try that. I'll try that. Store owners have said to us that, oh, I don't know if we really want women in the store. They take too long, they're really picky, they just waste our time. Wow, yeah.
Marion Saunders:Yeah.
Kirsten Diprose:Yeah, a buying customer is a buying customer, but Absolutely so. Yeah, we're working with selected stockists who are really pro-women and they just really want to look after their customers and make them feel great. That's it for Ducks on the Pond. Thank you to our guests, maz and Olivia. If you'd like to find out more about Liv, she's at Green Hip Workwear and, of course, you can follow Maz at Maz Lifestyle and Kirsten.
Kirsten Diprose:Since recording this episode, there was actually a huge storm at Corinda, where Maz lives. Her beautiful studio she talked about was destroyed. They lost their dog. The little community was quite badly affected by this storm, but in true Maz fashion, I think she still did two try-it-ons for her social media followers only days after the storm, with a hole in the side of her house, and that keep calm, carry on attitude is just so amazing, and she's been using her platform now to thank all the tradies and everyone who has been out there helping them. So she just is such a bright spark and so we are thinking of them and everyone in that community, and she is back doing what she does best Great, sending love, and we hope you're looking great, maz, which I'm sure you are.
Kirsten Diprose:And Jen, thank you for joining us and looking great, as you always do, you know. Oh yeah, thanks so much. It's my pleasure, but I can assure you I'm a mum who wears undies with holes in them. But you know, my children definitely need matching new holiday dresses for their Santa pictures. So I think I might have to start prioritising myself again and get a white tee and some new jeans for Christmas, as Maz suggested. I think you deserve that. I'm going to get myself a pair of pink overalls. That is very much me and how I like to be on the farm. So, yeah, pink all the way.
Kirsten Diprose:And before we go, let's actually chat to a highly fashionable woman, dimity. You know Dim, don't you? Jen? She always looks amazing. By the way, she's fantastic, and if you follow her on her social media, she loves to do rate it or hate it when the Oscars are on or any big race meets and that. So she's really witty and clever. She's not nasty, she's just spot on with her fashion. So I actually met her the other day and I took extra pride in what I wore, because she is such a spunky fashionista she really is. I love watching what she wears. She always does something a little bit bold and courageous, which I really admire that. It helps me to kind of go. Oh, maybe I will just try something a little bit different. So let's have another chat to Dimity, who sponsored our last episode with Grow Rural, and now she's wearing her Grow Events Group hat. Thank you for sponsoring another episode of Ducks on the Pond.
Dimity Simth:Thank you. It's a pleasure to be sponsoring such a fab podcast.
Kirsten Diprose:And luckily you've got another business that we can talk about, which is the first one. You started under the Grow banner, the Grow Events Group.
Dimity Simth:Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, so five years ago, what was that Five-year anniversary a few months ago now? So I was in Moree at the time. We were in the middle of the drought and there wasn't anything specific for women out there and I really wanted to get back into that after moving from Tamworth and finishing up Savvy Birds with a friend of mine, so I thought I'm going to put on an International Women's Day breakfast, turn it around very quickly, and then, surprise, surprise, two weeks later, we went into COVID lockdown.
Kirsten Diprose:However, thankfully, I persevered and, yeah, now in a team of five permanent and five contractors working all around Australia and doing fantastic events for rural, regional and agri-Australia, I feel like so many people I've interviewed on this podcast have stories of opening a store, starting an events business, and then COVID lockdown happens two weeks later or a month later. We need to collate these and put it in like a social media post. It's funny, yeah, it's a lot, because they're all people who've actually ended up succeeding, because you probably learned something from that experience.
Dimity Simth:Absolutely, and I think that the biggest things that I learned in the start were, yeah, you have to adapt to what the audience needs and what the environment is doing.
Dimity Simth:And I remember in those first few months I started doing Friday nights in where we had.
Dimity Simth:There was a new store called 61 Balo in Moree that had opened up and she just opened this amazing retail store and I thought what can I do here to try and help with sales? And so I went into the store with her and we did it in a COVID, safe manner and we did a little fashion parade on Zoom to people that were at home and that increased. I think she ended up having like $1,200 of sales just that night and for that to know that meant that business was going to continue to grow even though we were in the middle of a pandemic. That was pretty cool. So I had to learn how to use Zoom in a big way and now that's a massive platform and we feel really confident using that and then doing things like webinars. There were so many hybrid events which I had never really got involved in and it really pushed me to do that, as much as there were tough things that came from that I learned a lot.
Kirsten Diprose:And no doubt you're probably still using some of those skills now, even though we've opened up again. You can actually have physical events, thank goodness.
Dimity Simth:What kind of events do you do and where? Because you're based in Tamworth. So Grow Events Group, we deliver events. So we have three parts to our business model. So we do event management, event marketing and event communications and PR. So that's really our specific niche is those fields. But we work in engaging rural, regional and agricultural audiences. So we can be doing one week an event in Tasmania that's for rural women. The next week we can be doing a stakeholder summit for an agricultural corporate up in Cairns and doing a tour of the Atherton Tablelands. So then this week in Tamworth we did the Palliative Care New South Wales Conference. So we're focused on those that contribute to regional and agricultural communities, but community in general. I think that's probably the most important thing and the events that we love are ones that are going to have lasting impact on communities and groups like agricultural groups. And we're lucky that we get to do a range of different things throughout the year and, yeah, love the work that we do.
Kirsten Diprose:So you can travel all around Australia basically.
Dimity Simth:Oh, we go everywhere. Yeah, absolutely. So over the past few months, like I said, we've been in Cairns, we've been in Tasmania, we've been in Sydney, we've got events in Canberra, gold Coast next year, tamworth. We've got Dubbo in two weeks. One was in Scone on the weekend, another one's in Barrow at the end of this month. We're all over the place, but our team are based in ACT, new South Wales and Queensland, but we do have touch points all over Australia. So, look, I'd love for someone to engage us for an event in Broome That'd be awesome or Darwin I want to get a bit more over that side of the country. But, yeah, broome is a favourite. So, if anybody's listening, we're very keen to do an event in Broome. Will you cut a deal for?
Kirsten Diprose:them for a Ducks on the Pond listener who wants to do a podcast, come on, you have to give a good discount.
Dimity Simth:Absolutely 10% discount for anyone that's listened to Ducks on the Pond podcast for an event in Broome.
Kirsten Diprose:We can talk about terms and conditions, but lock it in. I'm absolutely all there for that. Oh, that's fantastic. So you gave some really great business advice in the last podcast about knowing your team and figuring out how to delegate. What's some more events specific advice that you could give? Because a lot of people host events, even if it's a birthday party. Do you have some good advice for events?
Dimity Simth:Yeah, look, I think the biggest thing that I have learned and this actually came from my dad's a dairy farmer.
Dimity Simth:Mum and dad are dairy farmers in Scone in New South Wales, and dad has always taught us that you never ask someone in your team to do something that you wouldn't do yourself.
Dimity Simth:So if that's cleaning out the effluent dam or if it's, you know, being up at 4am to feed a calf that needs to be fed because its mum didn't want to be near it that day, or whatever it might be, but in events, I always have the view that there's no way I will ask my team to do something and stand at a distance and watch them do it, Like I'm someone that even on the weekend we were at a venue and they had lost their head. So I was in there cleaning out plates and cups and picking up rubbish and putting chairs back in place and all of those sorts of things that you can't delegate to a team to do that. You have to be the one to do that, and I think that's the only way that you can lead a team is to do it yourself. So that's my view with events is that if you want people to work with you. You have to lead by setting an example of that.
Kirsten Diprose:That's the only way that's going to work. I reckon that's pretty good transferable advice to any industry that you have to be prepared to shovel the shit if you like.
Dimity Simth:I think that's it. I honestly think if you're not willing to clean it up like you should not be asking anyone else to do it, and I don't ever want to be in a position where I'm not in the trenches with my team when we're having big days or events and, yeah, I never want to be that corporate or a boss of a team that shouts orders. No way I want to be in there doing it with them and I feel like that's how you get the best out of your team. Anyway, when can people find out more about Gro Events Group? So if they head to https://www. groevents. com. au/, they will find all the information about our team. They can purchase some Grow merchandise.
Dimity Simth:We've got super fun hats which I'll be sending to you to support on the Ducks on the Pond, podcast videos and they can have a look at what we do, the client work that we do and a bit about the services we provide. We're also very active on social media, on LinkedIn and on Instagram and Facebook. Yeah, absolutely reach out if there's anything that we can do. And if they jump onto https://www. groevents. com. au/, there's a link on there for a free 15-minute consult. So if you're thinking of an event and you're not sure if it's going to be something that you want us to work with or not, or you might be just after some advice to help you set up a really solid event brief. You can do that in that 15 minutes for free Great.
Kirsten Diprose:Thank you so much, Dimity, for sponsoring this episode and the last episode, and you've been a guest as well.
Dimity Simth:So thank you so much. No, always happy to support it. So thank you very much for the opportunity.
