Sydney-based fashion brand One Mile was founded by Sammy Robinson in 2020 after a collaboration with another brand sparked the desire to have her own label.
The coastal-inspired brand launched with a sell-out knitwear collection, and caters to an often overlooked taller female demographic.
Recently One Mile opened its first boutique in Bondi Beach, which has seen the brand’s cult following frequent the space and sell out stock.
One Mile made its runway debut at Afterpay Australian Fashion Week 2022 with its Resort ’23 collections.
Robinson’s road to One Mile started over a decade ago when she began blogging on YouTube and built an audience through social media.
Now, Robinson has just shy of 700, 000 YouTube subscribers and about the same amount of Instagram followers– One Mile’s own Instagram has over 100,000 followers.
“I was doing a lot of sponsorships and I started that when influencing wasn’t really a thing,” Sammy Robinson, One Mile, creative director and owner told Inside Retail.
The desire to launch a brand of her own was instilled in Robinson as she recognised her work resulted in lucrative financial conversion for the brands she collaborated with.
“It clicked that I could probably be doing this for myself as well,” she said.
The autonomy Robinson experienced producing a collaboration collection with another brand about five years ago was the project that equipped her with the confidence to launch One Mile.
“I had so much autonomy over that collection and picked every detail down to the thread colour on a pair of jeans,” Robinson said adding, “I gained a thorough understanding so I thought of what fashion production was like.”
Working on this project also confirmed Robinson’s passion for fashion design.
Unaware of what One Mile’s mission would be despite trying to cultivate and define one Robinson now sees that this led to a customer-driven curation.
“The more I look back the more I can see that this occurred authentically and organically,” Robinson said.
“I was growing up with my online audience and designing pieces that I’d wear, and felt would resonate with them,” Robinson said.
Naturally, the product offering has evolved with Robinson and her audience, now aged 28, “When I was 23 the collections were a bit more colourful, tighter, and with a couple of random fabric selections in there,” Robinson said.
Tailoring clothes for taller females and catering for a gap in the market alongside the average female consumer demographic has further solidified the brand’s place in a competitive clothing market.
“For the tall girls; I’m six-foot-one and I wanted a pair of jeans that draped and got grubby on the floor, so that’s what I created,” Robinson said.
Cue One Mile’s Harlow jeans; a popular style that flies off the shelves. One Mile’s designs don’t exclusively cater to tall girls and cover a broad range of heights and sizes.
“The average height is five foot seven or eight, so if I was catering to only taller girls, clearly, I wouldn’t make many sales,” Robinson said.
“So we introduced the cropped styles alongside the regular and tall offering.
“That caters to everyone, which is good, but still making sure my tall girls get the length, that’s the most important thing.
“I’ve made mistakes over the years, and the brand has grown up with me.
“I’m still designing what I want to wear, but ultimately I have all my customers in mind now throughout the design process.
“I’ve got such a massive audience of amazing customers and followers who provide so much inspiration.
“We get feedback from them and that was the main reason we wanted to jump into the bricks-and-mortar space; to have that direct feedback and showroom experience for our customers.”
One Mile makes clothes for the modern, spirited woman, with laid-back, yet luxurious designs best described as elevated off-duty basics.
Selecting Bondi as the location for One Mile’s first boutique was driven by the team’s belief it was the best way to reach its customers and acquire new ones in a physical retail location.
“We felt Bondi was the hub for the most diverse group of people within Australia or the Eastern suburbs,” Robinson said.
“There’s a lot of tourists, concerts and events happening in the area, so we felt like it was a good little hub to get started, and we are a coastal lifestyle brand, too.
“I wanted the store to embody the coastal, authentic Australian essence of the brand.
“And what screams that more than Bondi Beach? It just made the most sense.
“It’s been a learning curve, because I think I knew that it would create impact for our customers, being able to feel and touch the clothes, but we didn’t realise to the extent that it would.
“They’ve really enjoyed being able to try stuff on and not have to return it.
The brand’s name is an ode to Robinson’s mum and the memories she cultivated on the coast growing up and holidaying at One Mile Beach in Foster.
“It has been a whirlwind, the fashion show feels like it was 10 years ago, but also feels like it was yesterday,” Robinson said.
“Things happen so quickly, that’s the exciting thrill of it.
“In the fashion and retail world you have to keep momentum to stay relevant.”
The post Why One Mile caters to tall girls and is evolving with founder Sammy Robinson appeared first on Inside Retail Australia.
