Profile

Danielle Clayton

Danielle is the founder of Australian surf wear label, Salt Gypsy. 

What led you to start exploring the systemic issues in garment production, and what have you learned since you first began this journey?

As I started with zero capital in 2012, the first product I launched was customisable surf leggings. I was paid upfront, produced to order in Bali and then I delivered a month later. Bali was the starting point due to its accessibility and ease—and hey, everyone else was producing in Bali so it seemed the thing to do if you were an indie designer. As the Salt Gypsy blog evolved into a standalone brand and the surf leggings gained traction in the marketplace—I shipped directly to customers worldwide right from the brand’s inception—I began to field wholesale enquiries, and my original maker in Bali was unable to keep up with the larger orders I began placing.

Over the three years that I produced in Bali, I worked with five different garment factories of varying sizes. I would be in these factories and offices almost daily and was able to meet many of the workers that made our garments. From what I could see, I was comfortable with the conditions in which they worked, but I had no idea if they were being paid a fair living wage or if the manufacturers I worked with were certified by any ethical or fair trade organisations. It’s not likely, as it was challenging to find any information on their certification.

I’m grateful for all the of lessons I learned about fashion production when working in Bali, whether it was around design and sampling, production lead times, costings, sourcing, or importing and exporting. But Bali was also confronting on a daily basis, as it is terribly polluted and single use plastic polybags are a massive problem.

I grew up in New Zealand with the ‘Be a Tidy Kiwi’, ‘Reduce, reuse, recycle’ and the ‘Buy NZ Made’ campaigns of the 1980s and 90s. So reducing waste and upcycling existing materials has been in my cultural DNA—both personally and professionally—since forever. What have I learned over the last five years? To always think outside the box, how to problem solve fast, and to always challenge the status quo.

Tell us about Salt Gypsy. In what ways are you currently addressing the brand’s social and environmental impact, and in what ways would you like to improve going forward?

Over the past two years, I’ve switched to a longer-lasting recycled nylon lycra, biodegradable packaging, and Australian manufacturing. I’ve also become R-Certified and initiated a social investment program in which customers can choose to donate to a professional surf athlete or beach conservation group.

Salt Gypsy is completely self-funded so I’m often restricted by a lack of capital, and that means there is plenty of room to improve! As we are predominantly an online business, I would love to figure out a better, cleaner process for our online and wholesale distribution. I also dream of the day I can support even more talented oceanwomen in their professional pursuits.

In 2015, you ‘put a brake on production in order to re-establish your supply chain and ensure Salt Gypsy was producing the best quality product.’ What influenced this decision and in what ways did you change the way you were operating?

In mid-2015 I was supplying thousands of leggings to Urban Outfitters, and around this time two things happened in the space of a week that radically challenged my thinking, and initiated the pivot that has led to the past two years of restructuring my supply chain. Firstly, I co-organised and attended the world’s first Surf + Social Good Summit in Bali. Secondly, the large factory I worked with and trusted made a production muck-up that cost me thousands of dollars. As a small business, that was thousands of dollars I could not afford. Those events forced me to look at Salt Gypsy as a profitable business, and a platform from which to do good. To create products I could be proud of, and support my community of oceanwomen.