How to fashion: Buy to empower women!

The Melbourne Fashion Week is over and it has left us wanting more glamour and spark, especially with so many new green and sustainable fashion choices. This fairly recent tendency keeps involving more and more brands and fashion designers, which are going all-in with thoughtful business practices. 

The best part is, you don’t need to go too far to find social enterprises that are making magic happen every single day. SisterWorks is here to provide the ultimate ethical fashion experience, selling clothes and accessories that are handmade with love by our passionate entrepreneurs.

Every Monday Milia Simielli, Design Lab coordinator here at SisterWorks, meets with all the migrant, refugee and asylum seeker women who come to the Richmond home to learn some new skills. Some of them have decided to spend their time learning how to make clothes, but in the past have also made different test products like lunch bags, veggie bags or puppets. 

The aim of these Monday workshops is to become great clothes makers, producing garments that can be sold in our SisterWorks shops. Their training usually lasts between four and six weeks, depending on their personal motivation and engagement, but is very common to find sisters who have engaged so much with what SisterWorks means to them, that they have incorporated coming to the classes into their regular activities.

The ladies meet once per week: they start by learning basic techniques, like how to use the sewing machine, and practice their skills on simple items.

Nora, from Hungary, is a good example of how effective this training can be, as she has already reached a professional level of sewing. 

Alone, she learned how to make bags and backpacks through YouTube videos, but thanks to SisterWorks she can now make more advanced items like lining and coats. 

Her dream is to keep experimenting with clothes and one day open her own business.

Phillippa, one of our most experienced volunteers and sewing teachers, is particularly proud of Nora’s work. She is a home-sewist herself and always made her own clothes. 

Another entrepreneur who fell in love with the world of fashion design and is now an experienced dressmaker is Petronia. She came from Burundi and now she spends her days creating accessories and dresses with the most fun patterns. She is not a woman of many words, but her smile and hugs are enough to lift the spirit.

These and more incredible stories of the future fashion designers of our beloved country, are the daily motivation to work here at SisterWorks. Come and find unique and sustainable clothing and accessories made by women like Nora or the lovely Petronia, so do not miss your chance to grab one and keep empowering women!