Stylish Growth Business

The Ripe Maternity Wear Story

When buyers from Target visited Ripe Maternity Wear shortly after it started in February 1996, they liked the product but were concerned about the company’s lack of infrastructure. Ripe’s directors, Kate Beaconsfield and Lisa Balakas, could not understand why. But they now realise that Target was disconcerted to find the office was simply line two on the telephone switch at one of Beaconsfield’s physiotherapy clinics. She was still treating clients with her new baby strapped to her back.

Target may have felt that Ripe was not ready to supply a big retail chain but Beaconsfield and Balakas never doubted their capabilities. Beaconsfield says: “We thought it was great we had an office at all.” Ripe has gone a long way on what Beaconsfield calls the “blind optimism” of its beginnings. It outgrew the physiotherapy clinic and several tiny shopfronts and now owns 1,100 square metres of elegant office and warehouse space on the banks of the Darebin Creek in Melbourne’s inner north.

Ripe is now a big wholesaler of maternity wear, supplying over 50 Australian stores and 300 overseas clothing boutiques, and exporting 35% of its output. In October 2004, it won the small to medium-size manufacturer category in the 2004 Governor of Victoria Export Awards and will open its first retail store in Melbourne in March 2005.

Beaconsfield has learnt to see setbacks as challenges. Ripe is opening the new retail outlet in Melbourne partly because the Myer department store decided to stop selling maternity wear in 2004. Overnight, Ripe lost its biggest customer.

The Myer decision highlighted Ripe’s need for more control of its brand and distribution. Beaconsfield says: “I hate cliches, but as someone said that day when I was really upset ‘When one door closes, another one opens’. It sent us off in another direction and I’m extremely comfortable with it.”

The boutique store in Hawthorn will promote Ripe’s view that pregnant women should be able to maintain their sense of style. It will also serve as a test ground for designs. If the Hawthorn store is a success, Beaconsfield wants to open a second store in Melbourne and two in Sydney.

Ripe began when Lisa Balakas, its co-founder and creative director, had her first child at 21. She resented the lack of fashionable maternity wear for young women and wanted to start her own label. For business advice, she spoke to her friend Kate Beaconsfield, a qualified physiotherapist who also wanted a new challenge.

Beaconsfield says: “I was running four clinics at the time. I realised that I liked the business side of it rather than actually doing the physio. When Lisa called, I said ‘I’ll do it with you’.”

Their different backgrounds have worked well together. Beaconsfield says: “Lisa does the design; the financials are my domain. We have very clear cut roles, which is the reason we don’t have disputes.”

After eighteen months in business, they got their first big order from a Sydney maternity store. Beaconsfield says: “I remember being in the plane on the way home and thinking, ‘If orders like this are possible, this could be a business. There is blue sky out there’.”

In 2000, Ripe got its first export order from the United Arab Emirates after a chance meeting with a buyer in Perth. It now sells to 11 overseas markets including: Hong Kong, Korea, Britain, the United States, Finland and Canada.
Ripe has a family friendly workplace: children of staff often come to work, there is a children’s room and flexible hours. Ripe supports the Post and Ante Natal Depression Association and tsunami relief appeals. As a result, Ripe has low staff turnover rates.

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