t, chats with Inside Retail about how the partnership has evolved, why it’s consistent with the brand’s core values, and what’s in store for the year ahead.  Inside Retail: To kick off, can you tell me about how Taking Shape is performing this year? Emily Spicer-Stuart: Our business model is anchored in our omnichannel strategy, and we’ve seen a strong resurgence of foot traffic across our 150 boutique stores in Australia and New Zealand. Post Covid-19, customers have flooded back to our stores, but it hasn’t impacted e-commerce activity.  Taking Shape really is about community, and the connection that we have with our customers. Our ladies were super excited to get back into the stores and rebuild those connections post-Covid-19 restrictions. Our channels have seen double digit growth compared to a year ago, so we’re really bucking the trend within the fashion landscape. IR: Can you discuss how the brand has managed to build that connection and community with its customers. ES: As stereotypical as it sounds, we’ve done it through a customer-first approach. A lot of our customers have been shopping with us for more than 25 years, and the last thing they need is more fashion without purpose. So we’ve worked to provide them with ongoing reasons to come back into our stores, and engage with the brand.  We’re continuing to work on providing customers with a strong reason to engage with the brand, because “feel good fashion” is more than just whacking on a dress. It’s something that we talk a lot about, and try to bring to life on a daily basis with everything that we do.  The new Elverina Johnson collection fits perfectly into that. IR: Can you discuss how the collaboration with Elverina came to be, and how it performed last year?. ES: It began organically. Elverina already had a relationship with our Cairns store, which evolved to become a working relationship with the head office. The collection launched in May last year, and was more classic and formal compared to this year. Her beautiful artwork was across everything, and was anchored in a really beautiful linen pants suit. We also partnered with her at Australian Fashion Week last year, which was very successful. This year’s collection has more of a casual feel. We’ve introduced denim and sneakers [among a range of other products]. We also thought there was a beautiful opportunity to launch swimwear, because of her heritage and traditional storytelling around the Great Barrier Reef. The swimwear collection has nearly sold out after two weeks. IR:  An objective of last year’s collaboration was to create conversations. Is that the objective again? ES: Absolutely. This year, Elverina coined the word “reconstyling,” which is a way of talking about reconciliation. Anything that we can be doing to provide those conversations is a really positive step in the right direction. Obviously, a big way of doing that is through fashion, which can be a great [point of connection.] IR: Can you discuss the impact of last year’s collection? ES:  We’ve had women over the last 12 months consistently come into the store looking for the collection. The other big and exciting piece for us is building personal and professional development opportunities with Indigenous communities. They don’t have the same opportunities from an education and business building perspective. We’ve been able to mentor Elverina, who has done a lot of work from a mentoring and coaching perspective with other local fashion designers to showcase her story.  Now, we’re off and racing with a second collection, which is doing really well.  IR: In terms of engaging with First Nations people and artists – is this partnership the first step for Taking Shape? ES: The first step for us as a brand was last year when we started to partner with Elverina. It really relates to the DNA of our brand, which [is centred on] providing an inclusive and supportive space for all of our customers. The partnership was a line in the sand to say we passionately believe in this, and we think there’s an amazing opportunity to [develop relationships with] First Nations designers. We’ll continue to work with them in the future. IR: Are there other partnerships in the works, and is it something that Taking Shapes does regularly? ES We haven’t done that a lot in the past to be completely frank. However, moving forward, we see it as an amazing opportunity to reinvigorate our customers, and give them an ongoing reason to come into our stores. We place a huge emphasis on customer service, and we run a lot of in store events for our ladies, who can come in and see the collection firsthand. They are professionally fitted by our styling team, and they walk out feeling amazing. We’ve got another couple of collections underway, and we will continue to work on that as a strategic opportunity. IR: Finally, there was some discussion last year regarding Taking Shapes international expansion plans. Can you discuss how that’s tracking?  ES: Based on the success of our digital platform, and the growth in international orders, we continue to focus on how we expand globally. We’ve got some very loyal customers coming through the US and Europe. We’re relocating our warehouse in the UK, and trying to centralise our digital footprint to drive economies of scale and efficiencies across the business model. We know we have something amazing from a brand perspective that the rest of the world needs to hear about, and be a part of, so we will [continue to work on] international expansion.  IR:  In terms of the rest of the year, are there big plans in the works? ES: Plenty. I can’t give away too many graphic or granular details. But we’re coming into the busiest time of the year, with a new season launching in August, and we’ve got some really exciting partnerships with Princess Cruises. Later in the year, we have the Christmas and Black Friday sales period, and will look to reinvigorate our customers [through] the warmer months as well. There’s certainly lots going on.