3. > SECTION
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J
amie Blakey could well
be the most rock ’n’ roll
company boss around.
As founder and
creative director of cult
Aussie fashion label One
Teaspoon, the Sydney-based
businesswoman very much epitomises
her brand – fun, laid-back, confident,
creative and rebellious.
“I’m not good with rules,” laughs
Jamie from her head office on Sydney’s
Northern Beaches. “It’s hard enough
to get the kids to school at the right
time. I’m not a routine person. Working
from nine to five at an office every day
completely goes against my grain.”
She might have an unorthodox way of
running a fashion empire but make no
mistake, One Teaspoon is big business.
The brand, of which Jamie has creative
control, is now stocked in 32 countries
worldwide, has 208,000 Instagram
followers and is loved and worn by
everyone from Fergie of the Black Eyed
Peas to Beyoncé, who has rocked several
pairs of One Teaspoon’s iconic Hendrix
Rollers denim shorts.
Jamie’s success and longevity in such
an unstable industry, she believes, rests
in knowing her customer, staying true
to herself and her brand and trusting her
own instincts.
“With other brands, they have all of
these other people and layers to their
company,” she says.
“They’re always having meetings
about a meeting and deciding what their
brand is and who they’re talking to and
who their customer is. We don’t do any of
that at all. It’s more whatever I’m feeling
at the time, and we evolve from that.”
Given the brand is in its 14th year,
Jamie’s formula is clearly a winner.
Raised on Queensland’s Sunshine
Coast, the teenager moved to Sydney to
work as a model as soon as she graduated
from high school.
Given she’d been customising her own
jeans since she was 10, denim-obsessed
Jamie loved working with beautiful
clothes but wasn’t comfortable being on
the other side of the camera as a model.
A stint in retail with Australian
surfwear brand Hot Tuna reaffirmed to
her that her passion and her future would
be in the fashion industry.
“I loved it but realised I wanted to
make the clothes as well as sell them,”
she says. “I had no formal training in
design but all the girls in our family had
been taught to sew and make patterns so
it was in the family.”
With just AU$3000 in the bank and no
formal qualifications in design but with
bucketloads of creativity and ambition,
Jamie, then 21, started One Teaspoon
from her Sydney home in July 2000.
“I worked at night in a pizza shop and
I worked on the weekends in a surf shop
so I could pay my rent and buy food,”
explains Jamie.
“It took eight weeks to get a sample
collection together and in the meantime,
I went and saw stores. And then there
was the production time – once I had
my orders together so there was a four-
month period where there was absolutely
no cash flow.”
It was two years of hard graft to get
the brand up and running but Jamie,
whose parents had always run their
own business, was realistic about the
challenges associated with starting a
small fashion enterprise.
“Back then, there was this rule of
thumb for people starting a small
business, which was either you are going
to make it in two years and you will
make it properly or you will go bust and
you will quit,” she says.
“I remember exactly the time I sat
back in my chair and went, ‘This is
really f***ing hard!’, but there was no
other option. I was never, ever going to
throw it in and even though it was hard,
I knew this was what I was going to be
doing and I just had to make it work.
From that point on, I worked out the
difficulties and just went for it.”
In five years, she had secured some
impressive international stockists and
was enjoying great success in Australia.
However, feeling as though she was
losing control over her brainchild, Jamie
decided to take a break and refocus
about eight years ago. >
JAMIE BLAKEY, the creative force
behind the hugely successful ONE
TEASPOON label, reveals how she forged
a fashion EMPIRE from her Sydney home
by BREAKING all of the RULES.
WORDS AMY MILLS PHOTOGRAPHY VINCENT FAHEY
BACK THEN, there
was this rule of thumb
for people starting a
small business, which
was either you are
going to make it in
TWO YEARS and
you will MAKE IT
properly or you will go
bust and you will quit.
4. > SECTION
THE COLLECTIVE 057
OUR FAVE PICKS
MOTIVATION IS KEY
“You have to really love what you do to
stay motivated to do your own thing. If
you don’t have the motivation and it’s
financially hard, you’re just going to quit
and go and get another job,” says Jamie.
“I think people start things for the
wrong reasons. Maybe they’re looking for
fame or their own personal recognition.
I don’t feel like there’s any longevity in
that. It has always been just about making
clothes for me. I probably say once a
month: ‘I just want to make clothes!’”
“I felt the brand had gone to a place
that I didn’t like,” she admits.
“I was being dictated a lot to by the
retailers. They were like: ‘Give me more
florals, give me more dresses, give me
more this and that!’, so I was doing what
they wanted but I hated it. I put the
breaks on, pulled back on what we were
doing and refocused it and started doing
what I wanted to again. It was almost like
a rebirth.” She hasn’t looked back since.
In fact, few people could say they love
their profession more now than when
they first started out, but such is the case
for Jamie.
Her passion for her brand and fashion
– and life in general, really – is infectious.
“I love it even more than when I
started, because as the brand has grown,
it has given me more freedom to make
the clothes that I want,” she says.
“I can also experiment with stuff.
We’re about to start doing this awesome
jewellery and if we were wholesaling we
probably wouldn’t get it over the line
with the retailers to start with because
you’ve got to convince them and they
have to take the risk. Now we can go
straight to production and pitch it how
we want.”
Jamie’s renewed enthusiasm also has
to do with the changing dynamic of the
fashion industry.
While many retailers have struggled as
shoppers move online, Jamie loves being
able to sell to – and connect directly
with – her customers through their
website and social media channels such as
Instagram.
“I’m really loving the transition,”
she says. “We still have a big wholesale
business but online is so big and it’s
just growing so much every single day
– it’s crazy! You see such instant results
online, not only just reading the sales but
looking at what people are loving and
directing them into what I’m loving.
“The process used to take so long. You
would have to convince the retailer for
three months and then if you convinced
them to buy something, then it was
another three months to get it in store
and then in the meantime, you’d released
another couple of collections and you
had to revisit it. >
The Freddie
Leather Pant
AU$349
Classic
Liberty Shirt
AU$129
Snow
Leopard
Jumpsuit
AU$179
Small Shell Ring Box
AU$9.95
oneteaspoon.com.au
5. 058 COLLECTIVEHUB.COM @COLLECTIVEHUB
Things happen a
lot QUICKER now
and that’s why I’m
loving the whole
process. My job is
so DIFFERENT to
what it was even four
years ago.
“Things happen a lot quicker now and
that’s why I’m loving the whole process.
My job is so different to what it was even
four years ago.”
Aside from her 14-year-old baby that
is One Teaspoon, Jamie is also a devoted
mum to Eddie Eagle, eight, Mickey Fox,
two, and eight-month-old Minnie Tiger.
She says the fact that she and her
husband of 11 years, Ronnie Blakey, work
so well together as parents enables her to
combine her dream career and a happy
family life.
“I have no idea how it all works,” laughs
Jamie. “But it does. My husband and I do
work really well together – we just juggle.
Generally, I do three days at our head
office in Manly and two at home. It’s not
so hard as one goes to school, one goes
to day care and I take Minnie to work
with me. She has her little cot and change
table there. My husband and I are both
really busy but I think that’s great for kids
to see. My parents always had their own
business and they were always at work
and it didn’t affect me. As long as you’re
giving your kids lots of love when you’re
with them, it’s all good.
“We are really lucky. I pinch myself
a lot.”
