Dogstar Designer, Masayo Yasuki The Queensland-based designer’s workroom and head office was one of the thousands of Queensland properties affected by floods earlier this year. The flood stopped rising inside the Manning Street warehouse at 1.8 metres, submerging furniture and fabrics that had to be abandoned when the waters reached shoulder height.
Our studio was closed for three months. Reinhabiting our flood damaged workroom wasn’t viable in the short to medium term and, due to concerns about future flooding, we decided to find a new workroom. It took us more than 10 weeks, during which time we had many dark days where I questioned whether this would be the end of the label; finding an appropriate new space was so difficult, and with every day that went by we were losing money and running more and more behind schedule. But the positivity of the staff, endless support of our clients and encouragement within the industry always lifted our spirits. During this time we worked from home, trying to ensure our stockists could receive some of the A/W collection. We moved into a fantastic new space nearby at Woolloongabba in May; it has been like a fresh new start for the label. We had to cancel some of our A/W collection. Thankfully most of our fantastic stockists were very patient and understanding. We haven’t fully appraised the loss and costs as yet. We are still in the process of doing this, however in terms of time and labour, we were very fortunate to have received donated time from staff, strangers and the local industry/other designers and local businesses. Sacha Drake and Deanne Mayocchi offered up their premises, Julie Tengdahl donated her cutting table and local furniture businesses provided desks and office equipment. Dogstar’s environmental policy and reuse, recycle approach helped us a lot as we were able to use these principles to create or rebirth furniture and equipment for various purposes in the new workroom. We have undoubtedly felt the effects of losing part of one of our biggest collections of the year, and the profit that usually comes with it. Thankfully Dogstar has a great team and very loyal client base, so we have focused on the positives and do not expect it to affect future sales. The biggest lingering consequence has actually been a positive one. The fashion industry is renowned for being a high-pressure, stressful work environment and that was often part of the culture in our previous workroom. Having the floods made me completely reevaluate my priorities; it also made me appreciate our incredible staff, family and friends. I became conscious of the kind of work environment we’d had previously, and when we opened the new premises, I resolved to create a work environment that would be less stressful, more fun and place a greater emphasis on work/life balance for everyone who worked there. It has been good to see something positive come from the adversity. There has been signs of a recovery in the local market. We have four Dogstar stores, in addition to stockists in Brisbane, and all stores have received strong support throughout the recovery. The economy still has some way to go until we are back to the retail growth that has been seen in previous years, but I think there has been a renewed appreciation of the importance of supporting local businesses and buying locally made fashion. We feel very positive about what lies ahead for the brand, and have plans for further interstate expansion. We are just about to show our summer and second summer collections at the Mercedes Benz Fashion Festival Sydney, we are preparing for The Wearer’s Right trade show next month and are beginning plans for our Autumn/Winter 2012 collection. Busy times ahead!
Ruby Sales manager, Minty MacFarlane Ruby was among many impacted by earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand. Despite its Christchurch store been out of action for the past five months, the independent chain has just opened its sixth store in Hamilton’s Casabella Lane and is set to show at New Zealand Fashion Week with its ‘Ruby’ brand.
Our Ruby designer called from her car where she was listening to the radio and heard about the quake. I was on my lunch break and walking back to the office. Immediately I called our Christchurch store manager on her cell phone, as I assumed the main lines would be down. We had just hired Abby, a new manager for our Christchurch store and it was her very first day working in store. When we got through to her the Christchurch store staff were running down the middle of the street towards an empty ground level car park to get out of the way of the old historic brick buildings that surround the High Street area. The staff were incredibly distressed, they had witnessed buildings on our street come down to ground level that our fellow retailers were inside of. It was a very surreal and heartbreaking conversation to be having with them, we are just very thankful that our staff got out of the store and the CBD safely. The entire CBD was shut down and has yet to be re-opened, our building has been red stickered and is not inhabitable. It is still unclear when the CBD will be likely to re-open and those based in Christchurch are hesitant to go anywhere near the city centre. Our boutique is situated on High Street, right in the heart of the CBD of Christchurch, which was shut down following the February 22 earthquake and is now classified as the red zone. We were unable to access the store or the stock inside it for five months following the quake; it was important to us that the store had a full engineers report before we would let our staff back inside. Their safety was our priority. We had our Wellington store manager down in Christchurch at the time and one of our first priorities was to get her and the rest of our Christchurch-based staff home safely. It was difficult to get out of Wellington as the airport had been affected and flights out of the city were not frequent and in strong demand. We have made a commitment to our Christchurch-based staff and have kept them on board throughout this ordeal, even though we are without a store to operate from since February 22. We have also flown our Christchurch manager up to reside in Auckland for the month of August to get her out of Christchurch and get her involved with the team in the lead-up to NZ Fashion Week and to help us open our sixth Ruby Boutique store in Hamilton’s Casabella Lane. High Street had become well-known in Christchurch for providing a boutique shopping experience to its customers. We had the most wonderful selection of neighbouring fashion boutiques and eateries. Every store on our street had to close its doors as the area has been shut down. Some have since re-opened up in new spaces in new areas of Christchurch and some are still in the process. We were fortunate not to lose any of our staff to the February quake, however we cannot say that all neighbouring businesses were as fortunate. It has been a very stressful and slow process for all involved, to say the least. Our staff were all very shaken and counselling services have been offered as well as support from our Auckland-based team wherever possible. We were recently given a one-hour time slot to be accompanied by the EQC into the building to retrieve the stock, by this point all of the stock was no longer new season and had lost its value, it was also not in its original condition with five months’ worth of dust that had accumulated within the store. We had already placed production orders on the stock for the Christchurch store for the coming season and had only a few weeks before we were to deliver a considerable portion of our Winter ‘11 stock. We are very lucky to have other retail stores throughout the country that we have been able to send the stock ordered for Christchurch too. This has meant extra pressure on those staff working in our other locations. It has been very difficult to find a new space to reopen as spaces are very limited. We currently have a new development in the works that we are very excited about and we look to be re-opening permanently early next year, where exactly is still to be confirmed. We do not expect the CBD will return to its previous state for a very long time. The landscape and the environment of retail in Christchurch has changed forever. There is still a big demand for our product in the area with an incredible loyal customer base. We are starting to see new clusters of retail stores forming as stores slowly begin to re-open in other areas of the city.
