Stars align as Coast jeans brand saves lives

A Gold Coast couple’s inspiring fashion start-up has taken ethical trading to new heights and unwittingly conjured help from A-list actors to royalty in a feel-good story that reads like a Hollywood film script

WITH ANN WASON MOORE IT’S the brainchild born of a Liam Neeson film.

It blew up with Meghan Markle, and now it’s the denim of demand for Leonardo DiCaprio.

The story of how one little Gold Coast company is changing not just the world of fashion but the lives of Third World women deserves its own film. Outland Denim founder and CEO James Bartle’s story is so simple in its inspiration and aims, so complex in its reality and so inspirational in its success, you can almost visualise an award-winning script. Although James might possess a smile worthy of the silver screen, he is not in this business for the fame, the glory or the money. The fact these side effects have occurred sits uncomfortably, unlike those jeans.

Perhaps the story of Mount Tamborine-based Outland Denim – a brand created with the sole purpose of empowering vulnerable women in developing countries, and which operates sustainably in every single aspect of the business – should not be so surprising, given James’s inspiration came from Hollywood itself.

“My wife Erica and I were on a date night back in 2008 and we watched Taken, the Liam Neeson film about human trafficking,” says James, now 38 and the father of two young daughters.

“It just stirred something in me. I wanted to go form a vigilante group but my wife convinced me there was a better way. I started researching and then a couple of years later I was lucky enough to travel through South-East Asia with a rescue agency. During that trip I actually saw a young girl for sale on the streets. It was enormously confronting.

“Erica and I thought we have to do something now. We started researching what would be required to create a solution for these women, not a charity or a giveback program.

“Those are great and necessary but they are the band-aid. We wanted to try to solve the problem. We wanted to teach them to fish, not just give them fish.’’

From idea to business launch took six years.

“I had no fashion experience. My wife worked for magazines in Sydney and ran a successful blog, but we had never made a pair of jeans before. Now we had to teach these mostly unskilled, traumatised women.

“But somehow, we did it.” Outland Denim launched in 2016 but went viral late last year after the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, stepped out in the brand’s “Harriet’’ black skinny jeans during her official tour Down Under. Literally overnight, the brand became a phenomenon.

Online sales increased by 2300 per cent over the two weeks after Meghan’s appearance in the jeans, while traffic to their website shot up by 1000 per cent in the 48 hours after she wore them.

But the impact can be best quantified with one fact – the sales spike has since allowed 46 new seamstresses, most of whom were victims of sex trafficking or forced labour, to be employed at Outland Denim’s factory in Cambodia.

If that is not enough, Leonardo DiCaprio recently refused to shoot a denimcentred editorial spread for Esquire magazine unless the said denim was Outland.

“I’m still getting my head around what’s happening,” says James (pictured). “Our world just blew up. “We never sent (Meghan) any products, we never communicated with her at all. But she’s a woman with strong beliefs and morals and our brand just aligned with her values. It was and is incredible.

“Then to have someone like Leonardo DiCaprio, who’s a very purpose-driven man, to have someone of his calibre and genuine credibility to support us, that’s the biggest kick we could ask for. And it’s