Aboriginal Health Service (VAHS) in Fitzroy, Melbourne. I’ve also been creating Aboriginal merchandise, usually in the form of training singlets, for a long time. We used these as incentives to encourage Aboriginal people to participate in our health promotion programs. What we found was there wasn’t a whole lot of Indigenous fashion or clothing that reinforced cultural identity and, most importantly, team and community connection. The merchandise from participating in the health promotion programs became highly sought after. We built up a really successful Healthy Lifestyles Team at VAHS, but after some time I decided to start my own business with Sarah Sheridan, who had been working with me for a number of years. Our skills really complemented each other. We shared the same passion and energy, and together we left our jobs and started a health promotion business – Spark Health. Essentially, we were looking for a way to do things differently. When we launched Spark Health in January 2018, we kicked off with a merch arm called Spark Merch. We had a vision that one day perhaps we could sell enough merchandise to self-fund the health promotion programs that we wanted to deliver on the ground. The brand began to shift from Spark Merch to Clothing The Gaps to communicate the vision, and as the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement grew stronger in 2020, there was huge demand for our merchandise. At that stage, it was just a team of myself, Sarah and one volunteer – Sianna Catullo, now our brand and marketing manager. We quickly roped in family and friends to help pack orders and sort merch. At that time, we had three T-shirts, including a ‘Free the Flag’ T-shirt and the ‘Always Was, Always Will Be’ T-shirt, which I now call the Ed Sheeran shirt after he wore it on stage in February this year. With people wanting to buy a tee for BLM rallies, and with postal services being delayed, we decided to hold our first pop-up store for people to visit us in person. We had such a long line out the front of our Preston office that people were stopping in cars asking what was going on. Due to Covid-19 restrictions, we had to limit the number of people in the store, while also wanting to take the opportunity to tell them to learn more, do more and take more action. I remember clicking a button on our website that enabled products to continue to sell when they were sold out. I didn’t feel bad about it because people were happy to wait four weeks for a T-shirt. Pre-selling our merch was essentially crowdfunding our business. YWH: The BLM movement and the increased visibility of First Nations merchandise and fashion have created larger demand and interest for brands like yours. Are there opportunities that have come from the quite rapid increased level of attention? LT: I have a Master’s in Public Health, and as a health practitioner, the T-shirt business was only ever really to fund the work of what is now the Clothing The Gaps Foundation (previously Spark Health). I initially thought of the T-shirts as the fuel for funding the health promotion. What I didn’t realise was the power of a tee, and the difference a T-shirt can make in sparking important conversations. People wear their values, and I think the T-shirt opens people up for that. Now, we realise that the brand has a huge impact, and as a social enterprise it enables the impactful work of the Clothing The Gaps Foundation, to add years to Aboriginal peoples’ lives. Even though I’m the CEO of Clothing The Gaps, I’d also say I’m the creative director,  ensuring that everything we present to the world is Mob-centred, and a reflection of what Mob’s feeling. People wear their values. Clothing The Gaps co-founders Laura Thompson and Sarah Sheridan. Image supplied YWH: I talk to a lot of people who appreciate the open communication around what merchandise is Ally Friendly and what’s Mob Only. Is that something you’ve always had? LT: It’s something that we learnt to communicate really early on. We were getting lots of messages from nonIndigenous people wanting to be supportive, but not wanting to cross the line between appropriation and appreciation. We knew we needed to do something! So we came up with the symbols and messaging behind ‘Mob Only’ and ‘Ally Friendly’. It was a massive moment for the business, as it was a green light for a lot of people. A signal to say, ‘You can wear the tee.’  Another thing we’ve always done is include postcards and stickers with our T-shirts that provide more opportunities for us to educate and share our message. One of our first postcards was, ‘Cool. You brought the tee – what next?’ How do you continue to privilege Blak voices everywhere in your life, and make sure that allyship doesn’t start and finish with buying a T-shirt? Ensuring that non-Indigenous people understand that wearing a tee is just one step in a continual journey of allyship and education is so important to us. YWH: You’ve already mentioned that health is very close to your heart and a key motivator for the business. What else do you see as a key driver for the business to exist and grow? LT: It’s become clearer over time. Our byline is uniting people through fashion and a cause, and our point of difference from lots of other brands is that we are merchandise with a message. The focus is on the message. If this tee isn’t going out in the world and creating a conversation, then it isn’t something Clothing The Gaps wants to do. This is our strength. It’s also probably the hardest part of our business. We’re not government funded and we don’t have philanthropic support. I’m really proud of that. We’re running a sustainable social enterprise business. We need to be able to create not just the best clothes for Mob, but the best clothes in the industry. We’ve got a B Corp accreditation and an Ethical Clothing Australia accreditation. What we want to set ourselves up to be is not just the best Blak brand, but one of the best streetwear brands on the market. We also employ 37 people. Of this team, over 90 per cent are Indigenous and most staff are under the age of 25. In FY22, we created just under 28,000 hours of Aboriginal youth employment. I’m really proud that we’re able to hold a space for young Aboriginal people, and have worked to create cultural safety by increasing the number of Blak people in this space. I’m also proud of our employment growth and the way we deliberately choose to do business to create jobs. We’ve chosen to keep picking, packing and distribution in-house, because we know that’s where we are able to create the majority of our employment. YWH: Are there things you think the non-Indigenous fashion sector and other businesses can learn from First Nations businesses? LT: There’s so much. I just came back from the Retail Fest conference on the Gold Coast. So many people asked me about our ROI or our email open rate. We’re not motivated by those types of numbers. What we are motivated by is our values and the conversations we are elevating and driving every day, with the aim of creating better outcomes for Mob in this country. What was interesting is when we did look at those e-commerce indicators, we were not only on par with many major retailers but exceeding their benchmarks. When you lead with values in business, supporters (or customers) see this, connect and come on that journey with you. We were recently awarded for being in the top five per cent of B corps internationally, in the Community category of the ‘Best for the World’ awards. First Nations businesses often inherently hold people, Country, community and the wider good at the core of their work, rather than trying to retrofit a business model to an impact piece. There’s loads that non-Indigenous businesses can learn from the way we, and many other Blak businesses, work. YWH: There are different motivators. LT: We’re motivated by community and integrity. I want to make my community proud. I care about what Aboriginal people think about our brand. We focus on keeping community at the heart of what we do, and it’s integral to everything we do. Our engagement is huge because we’ve been able to engage not just the Blak community, but broader Australia, too. They’re not just following us for our clothes, but for the education, stories and people that we’re able to share and elevate across our platform. I’ve learned that so many Blak businesses are driven by the same thing – how we can do better for our Mob. Not so much around those other measures of success. If you start with the values, it can also be viable. Models: Samara Fernandez-Brown (Arrente) and Douglas Briggs (Yorta Yorta). Photographer: Joshua Scott YWH: Are there key barriers or challenges in terms of connecting a broader customer base to First Nations products and items? I was talking to people from another Aboriginal brand who said they had to spend something like $3,000 on a labelling system just to qualify to stock somewhere. LT: It’s difficult because everyone’s on such a different journey. We invested in labelling and barcode-reading gear early on, just to be able to meet growing demand. We learnt from walking across the road in Brunswick to Sheet Society. We said, ‘You guys are selling a lot of sheets during Covid-19. What warehouse system do you use?’ They were honestly incredible and opened their doors to us to explain their systems – essentially we just replicated that. What Sheet Society did for us was share some practical information about what was working for them. We continue to pass this on to Blak businesses and social enterprises. Handon-heart, when other businesses come in, I’ll say, ‘These are the systems we use, and this is how we found them.’ That insight is so valuable when people are living and breathing and experiencing the same thing. There’s no need to hide this knowledge when it can help someone else. If we were able to be more coordinated, there would be more opportunities for us to support one another. As Blak brands, we’re all dealing with similar challenges. For example, we could get better rates and scale of economy if we all went to the same supplier, ordered the same blank tees and so on. I would like to get to the point where we started to come together in that way. YWH: What else do you think mainstream retailers could be doing to be good allies? LT: If you’re using a whole lot of Aboriginal models in your campaigns but you don’t have an Aboriginal person employed in your business, what does that say about how genuine and authentic you are? The second thing is your marketing calendar. Tell me what you’re going to post on your socials on 26 January. Tell me what you’re going to post when we have another Blak death in custody. Tell me what you’re going to post during NAIDOC week. Those things say a lot about where a brand sits. I’ll address those two points, and then usually I know if that’s a brand I want to work with. I’d also love to see more business-to-business collabs between mainstream and Indigenous brands, and I would like to see more of that wealth being invested back into Blak businesses. A collaboration that benefits Clothing The Gaps is going to benefit the other business, while allowing us to employ more Aboriginal people and do more work. Most of the profit from many of the collaborations we currently see are sitting with that non-Indigenous business, which might not employ any Aboriginal people. They are the biggest winners in this. I think that’s why, when people are going to purchase Aboriginal fashion or merchandise, they should buy from Blak businesses, because the value goes directly back into that business and its employees. YWH: You were part of last year’s First Nations Fashion + Design (FNFD) Show at Afterpay Australian Fashion Week, which was amazing. But after the runways, how else could the fashion industry offer practical support to meet the aspirations of Aboriginal-owned businesses? LT: FNFD was able to provide me and Clothing the Gaps with a culturally safe experience of Fashion Week, and I was happy to be a part of the experience. It was such a big year for us, and me personally, winning the Business Achievement Award at the National Indigenous Fashion Awards and the Indigenous Designer of the Year at the Australian Fashion Laureate. With the runways, I’ve learned that we put a whole lot of energy and focus into them, and they often don’t have financial rewards. When I had the chance to be on the runway, I chose to focus not just on the clothes but on the message we wanted to communicate. Our clothes are designed to make a statement, and I’m grateful to FNFD for allowing me to bring our own creative direction to the runway and give our First Nations models a sign that identified them and their connections to their Community and Country. It was a really powerful moment. I’m motivated to be on runways to make a statement to the fashion industry and society. That’s why Clothing The Gaps exists. We sell merchandise with a message. We’re not for your average retailer. We’re conversation starters. Photographer: Joshua Scott. Image supplied YWH: What’s next for you as a business, and what’s the foundation up to? LT: Because Clothing The Gaps is national, we needed to expand the physical impact area of the Clothing The Gaps Foundation, as previously it had delivered most of the programs in Melbourne and regional Victoria.  One of the ways we now do this is through our annual NAIDOC run. Our slogan is that we’re a movement that encourages movement. For the last three years, we’ve been getting over 5000 people to participate in our annual fun runs. That’s a cool part of what Clothing The Gaps Foundation does, along with school education, workshops and playing Traditional Aboriginal Games. But for Clothing The Gaps, my focus is on the Voice referendum – I honestly can’t think past it – and how we can use our platform to facilitate conversations. The more you know about the Voice, the more you realise the level of nuance. With Clothing The Gaps being true to its values, it’s a conversation that we can’t step away from. We want to push Australians to think beyond how they vote on the day. It’s also about how they continue to talk about treaty and truthtelling. That work is very important to us. We’re creating more one-off pieces that create conversations around treaty, voice and truth. We’re excited about elevated streetwear and would like to see merch with a message on the runway. We have also been touring on Yorta Yorta Country, where we have been photographing some incredible Elders to share their stories to celebrate this year’s NAIDOC theme. Trust me, they look so cute in our new NAIDOC Collection. We’ve been spending time at the Rumbalara Elders Facility and Cummeragunja mission, and have had lots of cuppas in many homes while we filmed and collected some really special stories. There is such an opportunity for the broader industry to further social justice causes for First Nations people. Australian businesses, brands and platforms can do so much more and, due to the amount of followers they have, their influence really is profound. This presents a unique opportunity to come together and say, ‘We can change the way this country looks for First Nations people.’ That’s what excites me and is going to keep me out of my comfort zone. Retailers have a massive opportunity to change outcomes. Yatu Widders Hunt is a descendant of the Anaiwan and Dunghutti peoples from northwestern NSW and the general manager at social change agency Cox Inall Ridgeway. This story first appeared in the May 2023 issue of Inside Retail Magazine.