Feathers founder Margaret Porritt, who is wrapping up her fashion business this year, shares how she survived and thrived over the last 53 years.
In 1972, I was a single mother of three looking for full-time work – something that simply wasn’t available to women in my position at the time. That year, I entered retail through a part-time job at a small dress shop in Melbourne’s West End, then the heart of the city’s office and retail trade. This was when Georges, Myer and Buckley & Nunn anchored the CBD.
Seeing an opportunity to be independent, I began negotiating on a second shop nearby. I could see that I needed to be an employer instead of an employee to improve my lifestyle. During that process, the owners of the store I worked for told me they were heading overseas for six months. I was upfront about my plans to go into business. That honesty paid off – they offered to sell me their store instead. I purchased it on a two-year payment plan, bought the stock, and within three months opened a second location.
I worked on the floor, traded around school hours, and saw what women actually wore. At that time, the Melbourne office girl wanted a black skirt and a white shirt and a little suit. So, I shifted gear to match and we kicked off. I sourced stock directly from warehouses on my way to work, steadily improving margins and control.
A major turning point came through leading designer Thomas Wardle. Despite a policy of only supplying retailers with two to three years’ trading history, his head of sales – the soon-to-be founder of Country Road, Stephen Bennett – visited my store and backed the business. His recommendation secured supply, and the business accelerated quickly.
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, we operated four major locations, each with adjacent dress and shoe shops. Turnover exceeded expectations, allowing us to secure leading brands including Sportscraft, Country Road, Carla Zampatti, George Gross, Harry Watt and Jane Lamerton. With scale came flexibility – we expanded by taking neighbouring tenancies and creating large-format stores.
As these brands moved into major department stores, heavy discounting became the norm, harming wholesale margins. You would get the range in and within two weeks, it'll be 30 per cent off. When you're buying wholesale, your margins take a hit from this.
In response, I reduced exposure to designer labels and focused on brands with stronger commercial alignment, particularly Country Road and Sportscraft, delivering strong volume and profitability.
I still carried a small selection of designer brands, and, at the end of the season, I would go in and buy the whole warehouse and clean it up. Eventually, they realised how much money I was making, and they decided to open their own clearance shops. This dramatically impacted my business.
In the early 1990s, during the “recession we had to have” according to Paul Keating – the then-Prime Minister – my business went from over a million dollars in each location to $200,000. That’s when I made the biggest mistake of my career. I stopped listening because I had been so successful for 20 years. I thought I knew everything.
That’s when the transition happened. Between 1991 and 1993, I opened 20 shops and closed 21. I exited leases as they expired, trialled pop-up retail before it was a buzzword, and ultimately consolidated into six viable locations. I also made tough commercial calls, dropping brands when they conflicted with nearby mono-brand stores or no longer supported the business model.
By the mid-1990s, it became clear that reliance on wholesale had limited growth and control. I shifted to vertical integration – sourcing products customers wanted and working with local and offshore manufacturers. This led to the launch of Feathers by Margaret Porritt, a fully owned brand with end-to-end control.
To fund this transition, I reinvested personally, including selling my home. For me, the business was a living object and the house was not.
The mistake I made during those tough times was not listening. But when the internet swooped in, bringing e-commerce and changing the retail game yet again, I listened. We knew we had to embrace it quickly. I’ve always backed my own judgement, because I like to be the master of my own destiny.
By remaining direct-to-consumer, we protected pricing, timing and brand integrity. While others struggled with discounting and parallel imports, Feathers remained resilient because it answered only to itself.
Now, after 53 years in business, I am closing Feathers due to a family illness. This is not a sell-off, it is a considered conclusion. I chose not to sell because I wanted the brand to end with dignity, not dilution. All commitments will be honoured, and the business will be wound down responsibly over the coming months.
What remains is the legacy – not just of a brand, but of independence, resilience and adaptability. I love this industry and the people in it, especially the younger generations who are curious, engaged and ready to challenge what came before.
They are the future of Australian fashion. And I’m proud to have been part of its past.