I’ve always had a deep love for vintage materials. There’s something incredibly special about how, years ago, everything was made with care, time, and lasting quality. That’s why it’s always saddened me to see beautiful old fabrics and vintage clothing simply go to waste.

Even as a child, I was fascinated by vintage dresses. I would bring home old pieces that caught my eye, and my mum—who made my clothes as a hobby—would be roped into transforming them. Sometimes she’d turn a dress into a skirt, or rework it entirely. Because she could sew, I never became an expert myself—but I did learn how to dream up the design, explain my vision, and work closely with others to bring it to life.

This hands-on approach, and love for vintage, evolved into what is now this upcycled dress business. From the start, it’s been important to me to include all women—of every age and figure. I want each dress to feel like it belongs, not to a category, but to a person.

The first dress I ever made was the Milkmaid Dress, based on an old black cotton dress I owned. That piece became the blueprint. Then came the Saartjie dress—born out of a moment where Vinkie (my creative partner) and I didn’t know what to make next. That’s when we realized something essential:

The tablecloth must lead the design.

Every piece starts with a vintage tablecloth, often hand-embroidered years—even decades—ago. Sometimes we struggle with how to use it, but in those moments, we remind ourselves: the fabric is the heart of the dress. We adapt our patterns to suit the material, not the other way around. If a tablecloth is large, the resulting dress is large—and beautifully so. With adjustable side ties, our dresses can often fit from a size 8 to a size 18. We never cut a tablecloth down just to fit a certain size. Instead, we use every last scrap, honoring the fabric and its story.

Over time, I’ve come to believe something quite magical:

The dress chooses the girl.

People often come into the shop drawn to one dress, but they leave with another—because the right one finds them. I’ve seen it happen too many times to ignore.

Vinkie and I always say we’re just playing with our cloths. But really, it’s a privilege. We work with forgotten fabrics that were once part of someone’s home, someone’s joy or sadness, someone’s life. To think that a woman—perhaps on a farm or in a small house—embroidered this cloth by hand, and now, decades later, it’s part of a new story… That moves me deeply.

Our hope is to transform these discarded treasures into new family heirlooms. Dresses that a grandmother, mother, and daughter can all wear. Pieces passed from one sister to another, year after year. More than just dresses, they’re memories in motion—honoring the past, living in the present, and ready to be loved in the future.