ically, it’s something most businesses go through every two to three years, it’s just trying to evolve and be in line with technology. I think for us, the idea is always that we have the most seamless experience between offline and e-commerce. This website gives us some opportunity to have more dynamic content, it makes some integration a little easier with social media, customers can shop our lookbook and it creates a platform for us to be more of an omnichannel retailer, so we can offer things like endless aisle and ship-from-store, which we’ll be launching in the next couple of months. JHM: Can you tell me more about what ship-from-store would involve? BV: If you’re in a physical store and a product is not available in the colour or size you want, that product will be sent directly to you from a location that does have it. If you’re shopping online, it means the inventory might not be in our warehouse, it might be in one of our 10 stores. The order will go to the closest store to you that has the product and they’ll send that product to you. So as a customer, you’ll never know where it came from – the most important thing is that the product is available and it gets shipped to you quickly and efficiently. It allows us to get more efficiency out of our inventory and for the customer, it means there’s less disappointment if the size or colour of a product they want isn’t available online. If you think about the complexities behind it, you need real-time inventory and that’s really challenging for businesses, because your inventory is obviously changing with every single transaction so unless you have it in real-time, it’s difficult to have that integrated approach. With that technology, it gives you the capability to do stuff that seems simple conceptually, but it’s actually really complex. Photography by: Sonny Vandevelde / bassike resort20 JHM: The US is on your radar at the moment. Can you tell me about your plans around that? BV: The US is absolutely our focus, it’s really exciting for us. Late last year, we partnered with a new agent, Rainbowwave, a wonderful sales and PR agency with some great brands, we’re excited to be part of the portfolio. They started initially with the international pre-fall collection and they’ve recently sold for winter and are soon going to go to market with our resort collection. US wholesale is exciting for us and one of the most exciting parts of our business in terms of our expansion into the marketplace. JHM: Do you think you’d like to expand your retail network in the US at some point? BV: We’d love to do more retail in the US, it’s something we’re always talking about and looking at. We’ve got our little store in the US on Lincoln Boulevard in Venice for four years. Right now, we don’t have any concrete plans in terms of opening our second store. We opened the US store in Venice on Lincoln because our first store in Australia was in Avalon on the Sydney northern beaches. It was a unique location to open a Bassike boutique and to this day, it’s still one of our best performing stores. It’s a favourite. Launching the brand in the US in Venice made sense because it’s a coastal community and it was the way we built the brand here in Australia. We opened there specifically because we saw the parallels between the climate and customers, specifically on the West Coast. There’s a seasonless-ness about the way Australians dress, particularly in Sydney. We don’t have those seasonal extremes – there are important pieces in terms of a woman’s winter wardrobe, but ultimately, it’s a trans-seasonal way of dressing. There are definitely subtleties that are important to managing our brand and retail business and it’s something we are constantly learning about. That could be colour, fit, timing and a slightly different schedule when it comes to season and end-of-season launches. JHM: How would you describe the Bassike customer? BV: I think in the most simplest terms, the Bassike customer is elevated and effortless. We’re a mens[wear] and womenswear business. They’re looking for pieces that will last beyond the current season. They want longevity from us, quality and design and they’re looking for something that’s not difficult to wear. It’s an easy wardrobe. JHM: Customers are constantly on the search for new products these days. Is it a challenge for you to keep up with that? BV: I guess with the high volume of communication on social media and everything that is accessible to customers, that’s something every business has to deal with but I think how you find your path through that is how you can be unique and differentiate your business. For Bassike, we focus on producing products that aren’t seasonal and can last through the seasons, so I guess it is slightly counter to that fast seasonal fashion [approach], but we’re a design-centred business, there’s a lot of creativity that comes from it and there are a lot of products in our range. We posted some images the other day on our Insta, and we had a customer comment that we produce so much product and don’t we care about the environment? I thought about it, and we actually produced about 45 units of that product she was looking at – we’re still a bespoke business and most of them are produced here in Australia made with the highest quality of materials. In some cases, we produce only six units of an item. There’s a lot of creativity, but it doesn’t mean you have to push thousands of units out into the marketplace and the environment. JHM: Sustainability has been the cornerstone of your business and Bassike is involved in Wool Week at the moment, isn’t it? Everything we do at Bassike starts with beautiful, ethically sourced fabric. We consider sustainability, practicality and wearability key to our design, and wool on its own is a natural, renewable fibre with low environmental impact. Wool is perfect for the Australian trans-seasonal way of dressing, and it features in a number of key pieces from our current AW19 collection. Photography by: Sonny Vandevelde / bassike resort20