Ignite Her Future: Women, Community & the Space Between

This weekend gone, we travelled to Melbourne for a very special reason: to attend the Dress for Success Ignite Her Future Gala.

Our connection with Dress for Success began with a familiar face.

Last year, the stunning Karina Bruce modelled for our Saint-Germain collection. We loved working with her immediately. She is warm, vibrant and an absolute pleasure to have around. She spoke so passionately about her work with Dress for Success that when we saw the gala, we bought a table right away.

Dress for Success supports women on their path towards employment and financial independence, providing professional clothing and styling, career support, mentoring and programs designed to help women regain confidence and find their feet.

Finding yourself without financial independence after a relationship ends. Single parenthood. Losing work. Domestic violence. An unexpected change in your health or physical independence. Life can change on a dime, and circumstances none of us imagined for ourselves can suddenly become our reality.

You don't have to have lived through the same experience as another woman to empathise with the magnitude of what it means to have to begin again.

The Women at our Table

We wanted to fill our table with women who meant something to us. Women who have supported MegbyDesign, women we'd come to know through business or online, and women who are out there powering their own lives.

There was Deborah Gates, who works with our wonderful stockist Two Birds Blue and has worn, supported and showcased MegbyDesign for years. Deborah inspires women over 50 to be themselves, have fun with clothing and dress with a little flair.

Michelle Webster from Two Birds Blue joined us too, another great supporter and lover of our clothes.

There was Joanne Griffin, owner of Blondies Boutique in Melbourne, a longstanding store with a beautiful curation of labels and one of only a couple of women at the table we'd actually met in person before.

Emma Rea joined us from Northcote. A self-taught jeweller, Emma has built her own beautiful shop and studio, selling her jewellery alongside MegbyDesign.

Then there was Leanne Zimmermann, of Leanne Zimmermann Style, with stores in Empire Revival in Murwillumbah and Kalbar. Leanne has supported us for years and has become something of a fashion icon on Instagram in her own right.

And Nic MacIsaac from Eva's Sunday.

Eva's Sunday exists within a very similar world to MegbyDesign. We share a small corner of the same niche and, undoubtedly, plenty of the same customers.

Nic and Michelle had spoken on the phone a number of times, bouncing ideas around, comparing notes and sharing intel from an industry that can sometimes feel surprisingly lonely when you're running an independent fashion label.

Finally meeting her in person was so cool. We both value having other women in the industry to talk to, share ideas with and support. Running an independent label can sometimes feel like its own little island, and those connections make it feel a lot less lonely.

From MegbyDesign there was Michelle, Marisa, Leisa and me.

Almost everyone arrived wearing MegbyDesign, with Nic very appropriately and beautifully representing Eva's Sunday.

Our table spanned women from their late twenties through to their mid-sixties, with different businesses, backgrounds, lifestyles and stages of life. Most of us had never met.

And strangely, it felt like we all already knew each other.

The Night

The gala itself was beautiful.

The room was filled with florals and bright reds. The music was fantastic, full of those classic songs everyone knows and loves, and the crowd was in incredibly high spirits.

Business conversations quickly became personal ones. People we'd known through Instagram, emails, wholesale orders and phone calls were suddenly sitting beside each other talking about work, families and life.

And then there was Karina.

Seeing someone we'd previously known in front of our camera now in her role with Dress for Success was incredibly special. She was vibrant, beautiful and filled with strength. There was something lovely about the fact that we'd first crossed paths through our little world of clothing, and that connection had eventually brought all of us into this room together.

Underneath the beautiful setting and celebration was, of course, the reason everyone was there.

Throughout the evening, we heard directly from women whose lives had been impacted by Dress for Success. One of those women was Lindsay, who spoke about her breast cancer journey and her road back towards independence and success.

What stayed with us was the importance of feeling seen, heard and supported.

We tend to think of independence as something we achieve, but independence isn't necessarily permanent. Sometimes you find yourself having to rebuild a life you never expected to lose in the first place.

And sometimes what makes that possible is having people around you who are willing to help.

It all comes down to community

There is something very beautiful about womanhood. An intangible connection that doesn't pay much mind to age gaps, different lifestyles or where we happen to be in our lives.

We don't need to have made the same choices or lived through the same things to recognise something of ourselves in one another.

Our table felt like a little example of that. Customers, stockists, creatives, business owners, our own team and another clothing label. Some of us had worked together for years, some had spoken occasionally on the phone, and some knew each other almost entirely through Instagram.

Yet somehow, there was an immediate sense of community.

Perhaps that's why the work of Dress for Success resonated with us so deeply. Our circumstances may be completely different, but we can understand the vulnerability of having life change unexpectedly, and the importance of having people around us when it does.

We often talk about independence as standing on your own two feet. But being independent doesn't mean doing everything alone.

Sometimes the strength to stand on your own two feet comes from the people standing beside you.

That is what Dress for Success is creating for women rebuilding their lives and, in a different way, it's what we've watched grow around MegbyDesign over the years too.

Women who wear our clothes, stock them, make them, photograph them, sell them, resell them, recommend them and work alongside us. Women sharing what they know, opening doors for each other and celebrating another woman's success without treating it as a threat.

Our night in Melbourne brought a tiny cross-section of that community into the same room for one of the first times.

We went to support Karina and Dress for Success and came home reminded that, in the end, it all comes down to community.

Independence and community aren't opposites.

We can stand on our own two feet and still reach out a hand to the woman beside us.

We are stronger together.