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The concept for Merry Folks‘s trendy gumboots all began on Danielle Holloway’s day by day commute. She was working at ANZ on the time, and located herself continuously ruining her work footwear on her travels to and from the workplace in Melbourne’s moist climate.
‘Rising up on a farm in South Gippsland, Victoria, I used to be accustomed to simply how helpful gumboots could be however couldn’t discover a pair that bridged the hole between metropolis and nation life,’ Danielle says.
Like most artistic entrepreneurs, she determined to discover a answer herself, creating the primary Merry Folks fashion: the now-bestselling Bobbi Ankle Boot comprised of pure rubber with a neoprene lining. They’re 100 per cent waterproof, like the sensible gumboots she recalled from her childhood, just a bit bit extra grown up.
‘When considering of a model title, I saved coming again to the thought of happiness,’ Danielle provides. ‘It was why I needed to start out the enterprise and it was how I needed my prospects to really feel once they wore their boots. Gumboots and splashing by means of puddles or mud takes me again to my childhood. It’s a second to be spontaneous and break away (even only for a second) from all of the day by day stresses that come from being an grownup.’
She began out promoting the footwear at farmer’s markets and dealing on the enterprise on nights and weekends earlier than she left her company job to ‘make the leap’ and provides Merry Folks her all. ‘I selected the trail that I may see myself being happiest in and I’ve no regrets,’ Danielle says.
‘I did have some powerful days. It was laborious as a result of I used to be in my early 30s and I used to be dwelling week-to-week and at occasions having to promote my possessions to pay for my lease.’
Since then, Merry Folks has grown from a grassroots start-up to a profitable enterprise based mostly in Collingwood and bought throughout Australia, New Zealand, US and the UK. Her area of interest of purposeful, modern footwear has gained a rising buyer base of regional gardeners to inner-city staff and every part in between. The vary has expanded too, now that includes the standard Darcy Mid Calf Boot and their latest launch, the Billie Clog, in a spread of impartial and daring colors that replicate the model’s joyful ethos.
‘Cass (our product designer) got here into work sooner or later with a Bobbi boot she had minimize herself and made right into a clog and mentioned to me “Dani what do you concentrate on this!” … and I appreciated it!’
“In 2023 we might be extending our measurement vary to measurement 45 and shifting right into a extra unisex model. We’re all actually enthusiastic about this variation and hope our prospects are too!’
Whereas Danielle says she all the time felt ‘so awkward’ when she advised folks she was making an attempt to start out her personal gumboot firm, as of late she proudly spots somebody most days carrying Merry Folks – and ‘it’s the perfect feeling’.
Store Merry Folks’s full vary and their new Billie Clog colourways on-line right here.
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