About Us
GladRagz is the brain child of Queensland based fashion designer Wendy Stanley who can be found at the Eumundi Markets on the beautiful Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia.
"The catalyst that made me decide to start my own fashion business was that as a globally conscious consumer I felt dissatisfied with the limited availabilty of ethically produced and Australian-made clothing. Instead we have racks upon racks of quickly, cheaply and unethically produced garments from China and India. I thought I would take the ethics issue one step further by using recycled fabric and that's how “Gladragz” was born.
Wendy admits she has always had a creative streak. She says she was drawn to subjects such as art history and drama during her school years in Palmwoods, Queensland and also had her own recycled jewellery business which utilized shells from the Torres Strait that she sold at festivals for many years.
“But once the kids came along, beads and babies just didn’t go together so I gave all my stuff away to a teenage girl and that was that.”
Wendy's first foray into fashion was a stint creating ‘tropical knitwear’ with a friend.
“She had a knitting machine and I was the designer. We came up with lots of loose layered knitted garb with bell sleeves, flares, hot pants – all mainly aimed at the ravers market. We did a few high end dresses too which were pretty glam with thin straps and low backs.”
Wendy developed the pattern for the two different styles of wrap-around skirts in her range from a 1970s skirt a friend had and added a big, practical, 1950s style apron pocket on every one for millennium style accessories such as car keys, phones and MP3 players. The unique one off originals were an instant hit, and ever since Wendy has been hard pressed to keep up with demand.
"I reclaim fabric to create my garments. I use anything from old bed linen to tablecloths, curtains and vintage fabrics to contemporary unused remnants that someone has just tossed out."
“People get very nostalgic when they see my clothes,” she says. “They’ll say things like ‘My Nana used to have those curtains!’ or ‘We used to have these sheets.’ There are so many memories within the panels of my skirts.”
Wendy says the skirts represent fun, happiness and practicality – that’s where the ‘Glad’ comes into it - and the ‘ragz’ are all the recycled materials she uses.
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