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We had been working for a couple of years in St.Maarten and saving all our $ to go sailing again, we had a new boat we had bought very cheap at a boatyard auction but was in quite a state, so we had worked very hard to do her up.
Our baby was now 2 and the perfect age for sailing.
While we were sailing I was creating beaded jewelry in the colors of the Caribbean Sea, which I already had an obsession about. I used crystals, glass beads and LARIMAR which is the gem stone of the Caribbean, only found in Dominican Republic.
I had all the beads stored underneath the big navigation table, so I would lift that lid of the table up and all the beads were laid out in organized compartments.
My very good friend and old colleague at Billabong South Africa said to me "when are you going to stop fiddling around with these little things, and start your own clothing line?".....it was like an "aha moment" from Oprah, something I had seriously not previously thought about, even though I had 12 years of experience in the Fashion Industry by that time. Graduating Fashion School, then working in Australia, London, Alexandria, Egypt where I worked for a big clothing manufacturer, and then over 4 years as Head Designer for Billabong South Africa.
So I bought an old hand operated sewing machine from another yachtie, and started sewing samples on the boat.
We put together our first sample line, and then scouted around the island on the dinghy, looking for cool places to take some photos. We found this rock stage in between 2 perfect palm tree's to take photos of me in various sarongs & name dropped tee's.
It was always a bit difficult to keep the 2 year old out of the photos though!
Funny now, looking back.... she was the special element in the photos!
Nowadays the samples are made in the factory, and our photos are shot by a professional photograher, but we are still on island time and my sister Amy and her island friends model the line.
Times have changed and we have grown, but we can still be found in the most tiny of island boutiques, anywhere from the Caribbean, USA, Hawaii, the Philippines & now in the Cook Islands.