Bronwen Feachnie
"I’m the owner, but really I’m just the apprentice. The team have all the expertise and the knowledge, they’re so talented."
"We barely, barely, barely lasted through COVID. But I love it here because of its sense of community. It’s all about just being together and in a society that’s not overwhelming. All of those things are what makes it the most amazing place to live."
There’s more to creating a garment than just fabric, needle, and thread.
It takes nimble fingers and precision. A readiness for problem-solving, and the ability to pivot completely when necessary. When you’re also the one running the business creating those garments, it’s useful to have additional tools up your sleeve: a bit of grit and determination, and a lot of trust.
“You have to fight and fight and fight, or you’ll go out of business,” says Bronwen Feachnie, owner of Island Seamstress. The sound of sewing machines whir in the background as Bronwen’s team work on their garments, sun streaming through the windows. “I’m the owner, but really I’m just the apprentice. The team have all the expertise and the knowledge, they’re so talented.”
In a past life, Bronwen was a chef. She ran her own company for more than two decades, catering for film crews and breakfast events. But, as Bronwen says, “Whenever you meet a chef, they're probably an ex-chef because it's hard.”
After 25 years of “hard” Bronwen was ready for a break. She and her husband had moved to Tasmania in 2013, after visiting to enjoy the summer festival MONA FOMA. They loved the fresh air and the sense of community. Bronwen planted a garden to grow her own produce — not an easy task back home in Queensland. She quit catering and tried to dedicate more time to enjoying a calmer life.
Bronwen was in her garden when a local business broker talked her into buying Island Seamstress. “I was looking for something to do,” she laughs. “I thought it would just be part-time. I sort of bordered on the premise that it just ticked itself along, I could go in a couple of half days a week and say, ‘Hello, how are you?’ But… it didn't really work like that.”
It didn’t really work like that at all, especially for someone like Bronwen. She doesn’t sit still for long, and — as much as she tried to avoid it — Bronwen loves a challenge.
“I’ve just been roped back in,” she smiles.
We started doing more and more manufacturing, and it just seemed to be a more worthwhile use of their talent. I mean, there's nothing Patricia can't do. Nothing.
Island Seamstress has a subtle brick-and-mortar presence in the heart of midtown Hobart. The business was primarily an ad-hoc alteration company before Bronwen took ownership, sewing hems and seams for existing garments.
She didn’t intend to change the business when she bought it, but Bronwen realised the heart of Island Seamstress wasn’t in darning socks and altering Ugg boots. She hadn’t just bought a sewing business; she’d also inherited a whole team of talented, underutilised, people.
“The girls’ talent was just wasted,” remembers Bronwen. “When they can produce amazing Tasmanian-made garments, why would you have them just sitting there, doing hems? It wasn't logical. So I said, ‘Let’s make something.’ We started doing more and more manufacturing, and it just seemed to be a more worthwhile use of their talent. I mean, there's nothing Patricia can't do. Nothing.”
While her teams’ talents lie in manufacturing, Bronwen says her own are in recognising when to leave it to the professionals. She jokes that she is a “jack of all trades, master of none,” although it could be argued that Bronwen is certainly a master of knowing a good thing when she sees it.
Many of Bronwen’s most valued staff members start off as work experience students who, just like Bronwen, work hard and show a bit of courage. “Uw and Katsuki had just finished their Cert III at TAFE,” she remembers. “And they just knocked on the door one day and asked, ‘Have you got any work experience?’ I said, ‘Come on Thursday.’
“Uw is very experienced. She has had her own alterations business in the past and she's an extremely good machinist. And Katsuki cuts like a demon. He’s confident, he’s fast, he’s excellent. Patricia has been here since she was 16, she started work experience and just stayed. She knows every policeman who has ever been recruited over the last forty years. They walk in and she says ‘Hello, how are you?’ There’s 4000 of them! How does she know them all?”
The Island Seamstress team have manufactured and altered garments for thousands of Tasmania’s frontline workers over the years, and even been involved in the creation of non-apparel materials for local organisations such as Mona and Farm Gate market. Budget cuts and global pandemics have made things difficult at times. But again, it’s the people that push Bronwen to keep going. She recounts tales full of words of encouragement and support from her fellow midtown stores, and fellow business-owners who become friends.
“The community here is not like anywhere else I’ve ever lived,” she says. “We barely, barely, barely lasted through COVID. But I love it here because of its sense of community. People want a simpler life. They want a life that's more connected. It’s all about just being together and in a society that’s not overwhelming. All of those things are what makes it the most amazing place to live.”
We worked with southern Tasmanian photographer Lisa Kuilenburg for this Tasmanian story.
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