Fashion is a notoriously tricky industry to launch a brand into, as Australian designer Rebecca Vallance can attest...

“You’re only ever as good as your last collection, so every day is a little bit like the beginning,” she shared in our recent live AllBright event, hosted by Georgie Abay. This might be a problem, if you’re not brimming with passion and total dedication like Vallance. She started off in the industry as a model, and then moved into fashion PR before launching her namesake label in 2011. Perhaps best known for her floaty dresses, on-point tailoring and keep-forever coats, here Vallance reflects on the biggest challenges she faced building a global brand, the surprising lessons and defining moments.

Rebecca Vallance's Spring Summer 2021 collection

Was it always your plan to become a fashion designer? How did you have the courage to step out of PR and launch your own brand?

Being a fashion designer was all that I wanted to do from when I was a young girl, but I think I'm a kind of cautious person and everything needed to align. I definitely took a different road to getting there. I think so many designers take so many different roads to starting their own business, and this was just my road. I started out in fashion publicity, which was a great base to then launch my own label. 

When you started, what were some of the biggest challenges?

I think having a sound production system. When I first started, I was living in London and we had a production agency working with us to produce the product. That was a learning curve in itself, and now it's a very well-oiled machine, but back in the day it was a challenge to make sure the product that I designed was actually being delivered the same. 

Was it harder to launch a brand then, than it is now, do you think?

I think everything is hard when you start a business. You're an unknown. Finding people who will take your brand seriously and support it and buy it and keep re-buying it, that is hard. So while there were very different problems back then, it's still hard work now.

Founders can suffer a confidence crisis. How did you learn to have the confidence, or do you think that just came over the years?

I think I'm a naturally confident person, but I also knew from working in fashion PR, and having designers as clients, that you only get a first chance for a first opinion of the collection, and if it’s not incredible from day one and if it doesn’t have a strong point of difference, no one will buy it. So I knew to be sure the product was on point. And it's no different now. You are only as good as your last collection. Even though you might be 10 or 12 years down the track, if your collection isn't what consumers are after then it's over. So every day is a little bit like the beginning.

I last interviewed you six years ago when you just had your first baby boy. It feels like such a long time ago. And since then, your brand has grown so much and you've gone on to have another child. How have you navigated raising two young boys with growing this huge, global company?

It's really hard because I'm a hands-on mum. And work-life balance, sure, that's the goal, but I mean, the last couple of months with a fashion show coming up, it hasn't existed at all. But I try and instil good values in the children. They know they have a mum who works full time, but I do the readers each night. I lay in bed with Matthias and I think that's the best time to extract information from them because they desperately don't want to go to sleep. And I’ve got great help. My husband's a very hands-on father. He works full-time as well. And we have a wonderful nanny as well.

Do you sometimes have to take a big-picture approach to stay across both your work and home in the way you would like?

When it comes to my brand, I’m extremely involved... I don't think I'm a person who can have a macro approach in my business. I've tried at different times over the years, but I like to know how my staff are going individually, how they're doing personally, and know what's going on in every single area of the business. I don't need to be involved in the micro-micro, but I'm very hands-on.

I want to talk about the last year because it was an incredibly challenging year for so many people and businesses, and this is especially true for the fashion industry. So talk to me about how you navigated such a challenging year…

It’s not a year that I ever want to repeat. For us, our business was 70% overseas, so Europe, America, Middle East, what have you, prior to COVID. And that meant we got hit really hard. So it was about navigating through that. I mean, there were some retailers that were just incredible, like Net-a-Porter, for example. They said, "Listen, what can you afford to cancel? What can you afford to push? Instead of delivering in May, can you deliver in October?" They worked with us. There were some great experiences like that, even in such a terrible situation.

Did your business have to change?

I had to let some people go, which was heartbreaking. I remember standing in the corner of the design room with tears streaming down my face, saying I felt like I had let everyone down. That was horrific. But then we kept going. Every day, we planned and we planted the seeds and we were strong. We were together. We pushed back brand extensions, including Bridal and Sportif. I think it was just about buckling down, playing to our strengths and focusing on our business in Australia.

It’s a cliche, but certainly true, that through adversity comes strength and learning. Would you say your business is stronger now?

I think the business is stronger than it was pre-COVID because we've become more agile. We had to look at how we were doing things, what was important to us as a company, and how we want to do things moving forward. So there was opportunity in all of the challenges we faced. Still, it’s not a year I want to repeat.

I’m interested in your expansion into Bridal and Sportif. When you're running a company like yours, what leads to the decision​ to launch? Why Sportif now? Why Bridal now? How do you approach growth?

I want to see the brand progress and always be relevant. And so I think as a woman myself, the pieces that I was wearing at 22, now at 40, I'm dressing differently. And we have customers that are 22. We have customers that are 40. We have women that are 67 who wear the brand. You know what I mean? So what we've been trying to do is outfit them authentically in every area of their day that is relevant to us.

I want to talk about how you've grown Rebecca Vallance into a global brand. It’s something so many people set out to do, but it's not easy. Talk me through how you've done this and any significant, defining moments...

When I launched the business in London, I knew I wanted it to be an international brand. I also knew I wanted it to always have a certain aesthetic. And you can keep refining that and evolving that each season, but being international was really important to me because at the time, I didn't know where we were going to end up living. Married to a European man, I didn't know we were going to come back to Australia. So for the first season, we took the collection to Paris and sold it there and picked up two Harvey Nichols accounts, which felt like a good indication that we were onto something. That was a defining moment.

It is incredible to launch a collection and get Harvey Nichols. That's a dream come true...

Definitely. And then I think the next defining moment, skipping forward a few years, was when we were in Paris again and Moda Operandi’s Lisa Aiken, who was working for Net-a-Porter at the time, spent a couple of hours with us explaining why she wasn't picking us up. I mean, who does that? She went into intricate detail with each garment, explaining what needed to change. For example, we had a gorgeous midi dress, and she said, "This is too conservative. This is too safe. Cut the entire back out." And I took her very seriously, so I went back to Australia and we took onboard every single thing she said. When we showed at fashion week three months later, they picked up the entire collection.

A collection picked up by Net-a-Porter is huge...

It was incredible. I had to fly to New York to show Net the collection again to Sarah Rutson, who's very well known in the fashion industry, who had to sign off on it. It was nerve-racking, but incredible. And when we got the order from them, I'd never seen anything like it. It was like, "Wow."

What happened when it went live?

A lot of it went to straight to being marked as sold out. I said to my team, "This is a marketing thing. They must say it’s sold out to get you to buy the other products." But in fact it was true. We'd launched, and I think it went to 98% sell-through that season. So we knew we were on to something then, and then from there, everything else followed. All you need in life is for somebody to give you a chance and to open a door, and then it's up to you and your product.

When you're walking into those big meetings, have you ever felt self-doubt? And if so, how do you overcome that?

Even at the show last week, I felt like I was going to faint. Only Kelly Hume the stylist, and the show producer, Kylie Ferrington, knew, but I was like, ‘I feel like I'm going to faint.’ I think it’s because as a business owner, you really, really care what the outcome is. I remember walking into that Net-a-Porter meeting with Lisa Aiken and Sarah Rutson and the whole Net buying team, and in that moment you've got to believe in your product, believe in what you're doing, and believe you have a unique offering.

There are a lot of people who want to launch their own fashion companies, and the barriers to entry are lower these days. You can launch an online site. You can launch an Instagram account and have an instant audience. So what is your advice to these people?

Make sure you've got an authentically unique product. No one needs to see more of the same. And you have to think, if a buyer's coming in, what is going to make them buy this brand? How are you different to everyone else? I think that's the most important thing. People also judge on social media, so manage your account really carefully and make sure that you're doing all the right things, whether it's sustainability or how the product is manufactured. Work out what's important to the customer, what's important to you and make sure you've got a point of difference. Buyers see so much every day so you need to stand out.

Rebecca Vallance Spring Summer 2021 collection

On the topic of social media, what role would you say it plays in your brand?

I love social media for the brand. I think that back in the day, let's say 20 years ago, if your product wasn't picked up quickly, or if you didn't have great sell-through, you were really up against it. But now with social media, you can help by getting your brand known. We’ll let people know we’re doing swim later in the year on social media. I mean, even for the show, it was so incredible to be able to show it to our audience who could not be in the room. You can deal direct with your consumer, and I love that. I actually read all the messages, so I can see what people are saying, and it's great. You don't have to go through anyone. You can talk directly to your customer, which is a gift.

I speak to a lot of founders about the other side of this, which is dealing with negative feedback. So how do you handle negative feedback?

I think it depends where they're coming from. If it's genuine and it's from a good place and you were in the wrong, then absolutely I'll take it on. But if it's just hate for the sake of hate, no, I won't take it on because what's the point? I think you've got to be real. You've got to know that I'm not perfect. My team's not perfect. No-one’s perfect. 

What are your time-management tips?

I get up every morning at 5am to get through my emails while America is still at work, before my little boys get up and come to bed for what Matthias calls "mummy cuddles.” Then I prepare the kids' breakfast and drop them off to school. And then when I'm at work. My husband sometimes will do pickup, or I'll do pickup. And then I like to be present, have dinner with the kids. And then once they're in bed, I often open my laptop back up. On the weekends, I really like to make it all about the children Friday night. I think they're getting to an age where they're aware, so most things can wait till they've gone to sleep. But it's hard because you're always on when you've got your own business.