Mr Winston

Fashion Journal's Lifestyle and Careers columnist speaks to the founder of leisurewear label Mr Winston about its meteoric rise.

We are in the midst of renovating a tailor’s building here in Melbourne, which we believe will really shape the brand and open up a lot of exciting opportunities for us. I came from a business that targeted mostly to Gen Z girls and I think I learnt a lot about what they want to see and how they want to see it. Giving new life to discarded items is a great collaboration of the old and new. Every now and then I come across cool people that I’d love to see in our garments, but I think a lot of our success has come from our fast-paced drops and word of mouth. I’d say remember what the fundamental reasons were for starting, and make sure that reflects what you create and the way you operate all the way through. This is an arm of the business that we are incredibly proud of. I hold a lot of weight around our content and I think this has definitely contributed to our success and appeal. It is not always possible to manufacture everything here, but we love the idea of supporting local businesses and have developed great relationships and teams of people that have worked tirelessly for us. This is a great problem to have but [it’s] made it extremely challenging for us to meet demand. I recall going to the Moonlight Cinema a few weeks ago with a girlfriend when the desire for this investigation latched on – we counted a solid nine or so technicolour Mr Winston hoodies on the backs of young, teen or 20-something girls in the duration of the trailers alone. I wanted to start a business that created garments I could not find but wanted to buy. I always searched for items I would like to own and wear myself.