Life Instyle sat down with Love Friday co-creator, Sue Hennessy to talk lunch boxes, accessories and fabrics.
What was the spark that inspired you to start your own business?
Love Friday started with a conversation between myself and my neighbour Kim, with our mutual love of textiles and homewares, in a market saturated with mass-produced products.
What were those first steps you took to launch? And what would you say was the scariest part/your biggest fear?
Love Friday started as a pop up on my verandah. With Kim’s move to Hong Kong,we could source interesting fabrics in limited supply, which enabled us to design and create homewares. As successful as the popups were, we soon realised they had one stand out product. We looked at Life Instyle to take us to the next step, retail. The scariest moment was being accepted into Life Instyle, Australia’s premier trade show. Fortunately, our fears were soon forgotten, being embraced by many lovely stockists and supported by other exhibitors.
Tell us a bit about how you design/ make your product. Who/where/how/why etc.
Our multipurpose bags started their life as lunch bags for our kids, with a growing demand from friends we soon realised the versatility of our simple design. The multipurpose bag was born and is now sold as the everything and anything bag, from lunch to laptop, wine to wet bathers, from coffee mums to clutches on a night out. It has become the go-to bag with its Thermo lining and insulation to stop lipsticks from melting and lunches from wilting.
Our bags were originally hand-made in small quantities with 12 per design, using the end of run fabrics and Kim on the sewing machine. As demand grew we were unable to continue this practice. We began designing our own fabrics and outsourcing manufacturing. Although we still hand-make some of our tassels we now have the bulk made by a lovely family in Java, Indonesia. Versatility is important to Love Friday hence our bags have a variety of straps and tassels, options to dress them up or down depending on the customer’s desire.
Our stockists are as diverse as our customers, we have a strong country representation. Our multi-use product was embraced wholeheartedly by those in the country towns. We have a great love for this country and couldn’t be more grateful to be represented in small towns.
What is it that you think your customers love about your brand/ product?
Our customers love that our bags are not only beautiful but incredibly useful and more importantly versatile. We have a simple design ethos coupled with a desire to promote sustainability.
