Our Story
Two women. Eleven years.One studio about to close.
Eleven years ago, in a small house in Bangalow, Emma's life fell apart almost overnight. A divorce that nobody saw coming. A mortgage she suddenly had to carry alone. Two daughters still at school. The kind of situation where you stop sleeping properly and start doing maths in your head at 3am.
Diane had been her closest friend since they were teenagers in Sydney. She didn't ask if Emma needed help. She packed a bag, drove four hours north, and showed up at the door with two bottles of red wine and a sewing machine she'd had since university. That was the beginning.
The Bangalow Studio
We didn't have capital. We didn't have a strategy. We had a spare room, a secondhand rack, and the belief that women in Australia were being badly let down by the fashion industry — sold cheap, disposable pieces and told to be grateful.
We started small. Sourcing coats and knitwear we were genuinely proud of. Writing every product description ourselves at the kitchen table after the girls were in bed. Packing every order by hand. The early days were hard in ways we didn't expect — suppliers who didn't take us seriously, stock that arrived wrong, weeks where the numbers didn't add up. But the women who found us kept us going.
"What built Byron Classics wasn't a plan. It was the customers who became our community."
They emailed us. They sent photos. They told their daughters and their friends. A woman in Adelaide ordered a coat for her mother's birthday and sent us a note afterwards that we still have pinned to the wall of the studio today. We understood quickly that the women who shopped with us weren't just buying a coat. They were tired of being ignored. Tired of fashion that didn't respect their bodies, their age, or their intelligence. They wanted what we wanted — quality that lasts, cuts that flatter, clothes made with genuine care.
Eleven Years On — and a Studio About to Close
Emma saved the house. We built the studio in Bangalow into something neither of us could have imagined when Diane walked through that door with a sewing machine and no plan. Thousands of women across Australia have trusted us with their wardrobes.
And now, eleven years later, we are doing the hardest and most exciting thing we have ever done.
We are leaving Bangalow.
After signing the lease on a larger studio in Melbourne — the city where so much of our growth has come from in recent years — we have made the decision to close our original Bangalow space and move the entire operation south. The studio where every coat has been inspected and packed. The studio with Clare's note pinned to the wall. The studio where the kettle has boiled at least once an hour for eleven years.
In three weeks, the keys go back to the landlord. The lights go off. We walk into the next chapter of Byron Classics.
The Moving Sale — Why Everything Is at Up to 70% Off
When we sat down to do the numbers on moving the warehouse, the answer was deeply uncomfortable.
Every coat, every box, every piece of stock in the Bangalow studio has to be packed, shipped to Melbourne, and unpacked on the other side. The cost of moving the remaining inventory turned out to be higher than the value of clearing it at sale prices.
So we made the only decision that made sense. Everything in the studio is now at up to 70% off. Not as a marketing stunt. Not as manufactured urgency. Because we genuinely cannot afford to move it, and we would far rather these pieces ended up with women who will actually wear them than sitting in boxes we cannot pay to ship.
When the studio empties — when the last coat leaves and the door closes for the last time — anything unsold goes into a final shipment to Melbourne and reposts at standard prices. There is no second wave at these prices. There is no extension. The lease ends when the lease ends.
If a piece is still available to add to your cart, we still have stock. When it disappears, it is gone — because the studio is genuinely closing.
What We Believe
We believe a coat should last more than one winter. We believe a woman of 55 deserves the same thoughtfulness as a woman of 25. Quality is not a marketing word — it is a decision we make every single time we pack a parcel. And after eleven years in this small Bangalow studio, we still believe that two women who refuse to give up can build something that genuinely matters.
Thank you for being part of the chapter that ends in three weeks. And thank you in advance for being part of the one that begins next.
With all our love,
Emma & Diane
Bangalow, NSW · 2015–2026