COVER STORY
The co-founder of the hit fashion label talks about the origins of the business , what ’ s driving its success and how the retail industry can create better outcomes for First Nations peoples .
By Yatu Widders Hunt
Yatu Widders Hunt : I ’ m hoping to kick off with an understanding of how Clothing The Gaps came to be ? Laura Thompson : I ’ m a Gunditjmara woman and have worked in Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations my entire life – my family was integral in setting up the Victorian 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 merch 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 ►
May 2023 www . insideretail . com . au | 27