FAMILY AFFAIR
A MOVE TO THE ISLAND STATE INSPIRED THESE TRAILBLAZERS TO START A FASHION BRAND USING ONE OF ITS BIGGEST EXPORTS — WOOL.
Moving to Tasmania inspired a couple to start a merino fashion business, which now includes their children.
NICOLA AND CARL Mason arrived in Tasmania in 2000, filled with hope and ready to begin a grand adventure and a new life beyond their wildest dreams. Neither had ever set foot on Tasmanian shores before but, unbeknown to the Uk-born couple then, this southerly isle was also soon to be the inspiration for a new business venture, their now well-established merino wool clothing brand, Smitten Merino.
“I don’t know if it is the English in our blood but we had wanted to experience living somewhere else where there were four seasons instead of a hot, dry place like Perth,” says Nicola, 54. “My mum had travelled to Tasmania years before and had raved about it being a place of natural beauty, and we had always thought that it would be a lovely place to live.”
They vividly remember that first exciting day exploring Hobart with their young daughters Holly and Brooke in tow. Their son Daniel, who they fondly call “our little devil”, was born in Tasmania. Their children are now aged 27, 25 and 19 respectively. “We came in late May and there was snow on the mountain and we were so captivated by it,” recalls Nicola. “We had never seen snow and it felt like a different country — as if we’d landed in a European village — and we loved it!”
For Carl, 56, the consummate adventurer, Tasmania’s wild places were beckoning. “He wanted to mountain climb, bike ride, kayak — all those things that were much harder when we were based in the city of Perth, compared to here where everything is 20 minutes away,” explains Nicola.
The following day, Carl pulled on his tracksuit and tennis shoes and hiked up Hobart’s Mount Wellington. “It was dumping down snow and I was alone on the mountain, and it absolutely blew my mind,” Carl recalls. “But I froze.” The next day, Carl tackled the mountain again, this time wearing a brand new set of polyester thermals, which he soon found didn’t breathe when he broke out in a sweat.
“I went back to the outdoor store and said I couldn’t wear the thermals as they really stink and they showed me the merino wool Icebreaker thermals, which had just been brought out. I bought a set and hiked myself up the mountain again — I wore them for seven days on the trot and there was no smell, and the comfort and sensational feeling on my skin turned me into a person mad about wool.”
Meanwhile, the family happily settled in Taroona, a suburb of Hobart, and Carl, an environmental scientist by profession, continued overseeing his Perth building business from afar, while adventuring all over the island state during their first year there. “I was a very generous wife, I realise in retrospect,” Nicola adds dryly. With the girls at a local school, Nicola, whose own background is in communications, worked in tourism, while the seed of an idea was starting to grow. “I was home daddy to our little boy Daniel and running our business back in Perth and trying to get a new business going,” Carl says. “Nicola would tell me about all the amazing entrepreneurs she had met around the island and I would be sitting there wearing my merino thermals that I lived and slept in.”
When Nicola suggested starting an organic cotton sleepwear brand, Carl knew it had to be merino wool. “Why the heck make organic cotton when there’s this wonder fabric wool keeping me alive!” he answered. >
“...no-one was doing a merino brand in Tasmania. It was 2007, and suddenly that was it, we were off.”
As they researched the market, they began to realise that Tasmania produced some of the world’s finest merino wool. “All those sheep in the Midlands that we kept driving past were producing the best prime wool that went into Zegna suits in Italy but no-one was doing a merino brand in Tasmania,” Nicola says. “It was 2007, and suddenly that was it, we were off.”
They found a company in Melbourne producing fabric made from Tasmanian merino wool and ordered their first batch. Nicola — who had studied fashion design and had been a fashion buyer in WA — then designed and made up a small range of fashion garments. They took the garments to a Roberts Wool launch, held at Mona (Museum of Old and New Art) in Hobart, and to show to major wool brokers and growers. Encouraged by their positive response, Nicola sewed night and day to put a full range together. “Nic was sewing like mad but couldn’t keep up so I found a manufacturer up in Spreyton in northern Tasmania,” says Carl. Since then Carl, Smitten’s marketing man, has added a wool thermal range to Nicola’s fashion wear and accessories and they now have several fabric suppliers — “that took a bit of the risk out if it and they make the fabric to order for us” — sourcing superfine merino wool not only from Tasmania but now also from the mainland.
Smitten Merino wool is ethically grown from non-mulesed sheep and, while initially Nicola designed the range at their Hobart home and it was sold through selected stockists, these days the brand mainly sells online. Since 2015, they have also operated a retail outlet and design studio in Battery Point, Hobart. “The range is timeless rather than being ‘on trend’,” says Nicola, “and now I pretty much do a spring and autumn collection and just add a new colour or design.” Daughter Holly works with them as Smitten Merino’s in-house model, social media manager, and runs the stall at Salamanca Market on Saturdays, while Brooke, a doctor currently working in Tweed Heads, NSW, is a part-time model. Daniel, meanwhile, is a promising photographer who may be behind the camera at future Smitten shoots.
Looking back, they admit it took a giant leap of faith to relocate to a place they’d never seen. But it’s one they’ve never regretted. “It was a huge move sight unseen and we didn’t have jobs here so, in retrospect, we both have gone ‘Wow, what were we thinking?’” says Nicola.
“‘At the time, I guess we thought, ‘Wow, it’d be great to be living in a place like this with our kids!’ We loved it. And life is lovely for us in Tasmania.”
Smitten Merino, 47 Sandy Bay Road, Battery Point, (03) 6212 0197, smittenmerino.com