Made590 is a Sydney made clothing brand which focuses on wearable, fun fashion with a large emphasis on our own prints. We love working in collaboration with local artists and coming up with print stories for our range. We design all our clothing shapes in-house and often work as a team to marry prints with styles and create very special garments that can be treasured and worn for a lifetime. We produce all our womens wear locally in Sydney and ethically and the made590 team is primarily female. The design team is primarily women (with the exception of Mr Made590) and we design for a broad range of shapes and sizes, because we to are a broad range of shapes and sizes! We are proud to produce styles that fit a myriad of bodies and make you feel bloody good when you wear them! We produce all our clothes in sizes XXS-5XL and will continue to add!
The made590 team of ladies model on the made590 website, and we are all so proud to be different shapes and sizes and represent a cross section of women through heritage, size, shape and age. It is important to us that fashion feel accessible to all, and that people feel able to express themselves through what they wear. Our main goal is to help our customers feel 100% confident in what they wear, be that in a special occasion outfit or their every day work wear. We hope everyone can dress in locally-made fashion and support a dying Australian industry, because in supporting made590 and buying we us, you keep many small businesses going. Read more below for a full range of suppliers and makers we work with and support through the made590 brand.
Making our clothing, a little bit about the process!
Our women's clothing all starts with an idea, a shape we already love, or sometimes a vintage piece we find inspiration in.
We make a detailed sketch of new styles, always adding pockets and nutting out the improvements which will often just make something much more wearable day to day. We love being able to put our own spin on current fashion styles or classic shapes and make it a piece that the made590 customer is excited to add to their wardrobe. We then work with our fabulous pattern maker Christian, who will create a base sample for us based off our sketch. We will then try the sample on and make adjustments or improvements to fit, length, sizing or anything else we think of. Often this will mean an all-important second sample to make sure it's right and to perfect the finish for our makers to work off.
The pattern is then graded across our size range, and we take particular care with our grading in sizes XL and above. Not a lot of people know that to correctly fit a bigger body you need to grade each individual pattern piece in a specific ratio, rather than just enlarging a smaller size. this is something that's super important to us as we strive to create thoughtful, insightful designs to fit a wide range of body types. Next we pick fabrics to go into that style which means a lot of things need to be taken into account. Print scale, fabric thickness, drape, stretch and appropriate prints for the style need to all be taken into account when deciding. This can sometimes be the hardest part, but we usually try to sneak in at least one option that we personally want to be wearing that season!
The styles will then go off to our amazing makers! The styles is cut, sewn, pressed and finished completely in Sydney where it's delivered straight to our shop (usually by the boss lady herself!). We then photograph each style with the made590 models and release our ranges which are carefully planned out for each season. The entire production run can take months of planning but we love working so closely with our makers and team on the entire process, except maybe when it comes to carrying ALL the stock up the stairs!
Knitwear
Our knitwear is all made and knitted with the amazing Bill! We have worked with Bill for over 10 years and he is the last machine knitter in NSW producing for small brands. He has a lifetime of experience and relies heavily on local work throughout the year to keep his business running. Until recently Bill was situated in the Inner West of Sydney but was forced to move due to rent rises and is now located in the western suburbs of Sydney. Many larger brands who used to be locally knitted have taken their knitwear production off shore due to the restrictions in wool supply and the decline in Australian production meaning in turn the yarn suppliers have also died off or limited their ranges. Working with Bill is so important to us as it means we get to see the knits taking shape, choose our own buttons (which we get covered by another local maker, Shivan!) and the end product is a quality garment made completely here in Sydney. Each piece is so special and we hope, will be treasured and worn by it's owner for years to come.
Digital Printing
Until recently, all of our digital printing was done by a company we have worked with for the last few years offshore in China. However, we have recently begun working with a new fabric printer based out of India, who are Global Organic Textiles Standard certified. We are so happy we are able to work with an environmentally responsible printer!
Although we would love to be able to print in Australia as well as make here, the digital printing is not yet available to use here at the quality and range we can achieve through using overseas printers. We are constantly checking in with local printers and hoping in the future we will be able to print and produce our range entirely in Australia.
Screen printing
Our screen printed designs are all done locally in Leichhardt with Publisher Textiles. We have worked with the lovely people at Publisher since the very beginning to produce quality screen prints on our specially selected fabric bases as well as using their heat sealer to set out mens tee designs which Christina screen prints every few weeks. Screen printing our own fabric gives us greater control of the colours, a shorter turn around time and also means even the print is produced in Sydney, keeping another business running too.
Our makers
Our clothing is made by several different makers in and around Sydney who specialise in a few different types of production. Our stretch fabrics, coats, dresses, skirts and tops will all have different makers and garment production jobs go to them based on their production time and specialist area. Most of our makers have made for made590 for a long time and Christina can often be found on the phone chatting and checking in with them daily! We keep going back to that same makers time and again as they are also small female-lead businesses we have developed close relationships with and Christina will often say "Finding a good maker is like finding gold!", so you should always try to stick with the ones you have on your side whenever possible. Our makers are an extension of the Made family and they set their own prices with their manufacturing. All garments produced under made590 label have been done so ethically and award wage or above has been paid.
Our Fabric Designs
Prints are life around these parts and we know what really sets our clothing apart from other brands is our fabric designs! Gone are the days where Christina used to fly to Japan to shop Fabric Town and ship it all back to Sydney to produce small runs in Japanese cottons, now we have full control over exactly what we produce and the fabric bases we use! Our fabric ideas will often start with a short discuss between the team, ideas are generally an overwhelming "yes!" or a "hmm no" and Christina is generally the voice of reason when it comes to ideas being thrown around for fabric.
We will often find inspiration in vintage textiles, childhood nostalgia and of course being a team of animal lovers we have a good dose of animal inspiration too. We work to fill gaps in our range producing prints for many different walks of life. We are very aware how varied our customer base is and how different people want different things from their wardrobes. All the staff have an opinion on what they want to wear, colours they love and cuts that make them feel good. We are always on the hunt for the next big thing for made590.