Celebrating 40 years in fashion!

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you'll know that I've been celebrating 40 years in the fashion industry. It has been great time of reminiscing.

Would you believe that many of my customers have been since I first started? How time flies!

But as I also have new customers and followers, I thought I might share a bit of my fashion story and a few more photos.

Through the ups and the downs of the last four decades, I must stay I still do really love fashion and get a thrill from finding new pieces that I know my customers will adore and love the feeling of helping women find their own style and confidence in what they're wearing.

I was inspired to work in fashion after completing deportment school as a teenager.

In 1977, I started my first fashion job at a Wollongong boutique called Tizianas. It was. great store and I worked there until 1981.

After that I launched my first business, a boutique called 'Blondeez'. That's when things really got started!

I moved my boutique to a bigger premise in 1983 and renamed my business 'Marcelle'. I even had my own label that my mother and aunty (who were seamstresses) helped bring to life.

They were fabulous times and we had a whole lot of fun. I used to have lunch every Thursday with a group of local Wollongong business women and we were a great support to one another. That weekly lunch date lasted for decades!

I had the Wollongong franchise for Christian Dior and also stocked lots of other beautiful brands (some of which still exist today): Jill Fitzsimon, Robert Burton, Prue Atkin, Stuart Membury and Keri Craig.

I hosted and went to lots of fashion parades. Prior to social media, that was the main way we shared the new fashions. The parades were a lot of fun, it felt like we went to one every week.

I had some fabulous women work with me over the years and many of my customers from the 80s not only still buy from me, but have become good friends.

I sold my boutique in 1995 and since then have worked in interior design (and still continue to do so). However, I always come back to fashion and am just as passionate as ever. And here I am today with Trinity Row Clothing & Interiors. A few years ago I opened my Bulli boutique where I see customers by appointment. I expanded the business last year with an online boutique which has opened up lots of new possibilities. I now have customers in Europe and America, something that wouldn't have happened 40 years ago!

I just want to take this opportunity to thank all of my customers, new and old. You make what I do so enjoyable and I look forward to even more beautiful fashion in the years to come.