FOUNDER JOURNAL
Starting a Fashion Label in My 30s
A personal reflection on reinvention, risk and building SWEM RESORT
28 August 2026
If you'd told me a few years ago that I'd be starting my own fashion label in my 30s, I'm not sure I would have believed you.
When I look back at my twenties, they were really about building a life.
I moved from South Africa to Australia at 17 with my now-husband, who was 19 at the time. We arrived incredibly young, with almost no English, and essentially had to build a completely new life here from scratch.
We grew up together while figuring out a new country, building careers and creating a home on the other side of the world from where we'd started.
And somewhere amongst all of that, we travelled as much of the world as we possibly could.
Travel became such a huge part of who I am.
I spent my twenties seeing new places, experiencing different cultures and falling in love with beautiful hotels, coastlines, restaurants and that feeling you get when you're somewhere completely new.
Without knowing it at the time, so much of what would eventually become SWEM RESORT was being shaped during those years.
At the same time, I was building a corporate career.
From the outside, I was on a pretty established path. I had stability, a career I'd worked hard for and a life in Australia we'd built ourselves from the ground up.
But I was also slowly building something else.
My social media started simply because I genuinely loved it - sharing outfits, travel and pieces I was wearing. Over time, it grew into a community and began opening doors into an industry I'd always loved from the outside.
Fashion became a bigger and bigger part of my life.
Somewhere along the way, the idea of creating something of my own stopped feeling like a distant dream and started feeling like something I might actually do.
"For the first time, the path I'd been following for years had disappeared.And I realised I didn't actually want it back."
The Push I Didn't Expect
Then came my redundancy.
And strangely, while I hadn't chosen for my corporate career to end that way, once it did, I couldn't fathom going back.
The thought of finding another corporate role, starting again somewhere new and returning to the same routine just didn't feel like me anymore.
For the first time, the path I'd been following for years had disappeared.
And I realised I didn't actually want it back.
It left me asking a much bigger question: What do I want the next chapter of my life to look like?
I could throw myself properly into styling and content creation - something I'd spent years building alongside my corporate career.
I could finally give this fashion label I'd been dreaming about a real chance.
Maybe it was also time to slow down a little and think about starting a family.
Or, knowing me, somehow attempt all three.
What I did know was that I didn't want to go back simply because it was the safe or obvious thing to do.
For years, I'd had the security of a corporate career while building everything else around it. Suddenly that safety net was gone, and rather than feeling like I needed to replace it immediately, I felt something I hadn't expected.
Freedom.
For the first time, I had the opportunity to completely back myself.
And SWEM RESORT became more than an idea.
Having Someone in Your Corner
I also can't tell this story without acknowledging my husband.
We've essentially built our entire adult lives together.
We were 17 and 19 when we moved to Australia. We were kids, really, trying to figure out a new country, a new language and what our lives were going to look like.
So when I found myself at another enormous turning point all these years later, having him beside me mattered more than I can really explain.
Starting something like this is a risk.
Going from the security of a corporate career to pouring so much of yourself - your time, energy, money and emotion into an idea without knowing exactly how it will turn out is scary.
And if I'm being completely truthful, I don't know if I would have had the confidence to take that leap without someone beside me who believed in it as much as I did.
My husband has had my back completely from the beginning.
There was never a moment where he made me feel like I needed to play it safe, immediately find another corporate job or make SWEM smaller because it was the more sensible option.
If anything, he's been the person reminding me to back myself.
We've already taken one enormous leap together and built a life from scratch on the other side of the world.
Maybe that made taking another one feel a little less impossible.
He's listened to endless conversations about samples, fabrics, production, packaging, website changes and a million tiny decisions he probably never expected to have an opinion on.
Through every delay, every moment of doubt and every “what have I gotten myself into?”, he's been there telling me we'll figure it out.
There's something incredibly powerful about having someone who gives you the space and confidence to take a risk.
SWEM is my dream, but being able to chase it knowing I have someone completely in my corner is something I don't take for granted.
I Don't Think I Could Have Done This at 21
There seems to be this idea that by 30 you're supposed to have everything figured out.
Your career. Your direction. Your finances. What you're good at. Where you're going.
Starting something completely new can almost make you wonder whether you've left it too late.
But creating SWEM has made me realise how much I needed the years that came before it.
I don't think I could have created this brand at 21. Or even 25.
By my 30s, I knew myself differently.
I'd travelled. I'd developed my personal style. I'd spent years creating fashion content and understanding what women responded to. I'd learned what I genuinely loved to wear rather than what I thought I was supposed to love.
I trusted my taste more.
And perhaps most importantly, I'd stopped feeling like I needed to create something for everyone.
That clarity only came with time.
If I Was Going to Do It, I Wanted to Do It Properly
From the beginning, I knew I didn't want SWEM to feel like something I'd thrown together just to say I'd started a fashion brand.
I wanted to build the brand I'd had in my head.
And that meant investing in it - financially, creatively and personally.
I've poured so much into SWEM before selling a single piece.
The fabrics. The sampling. The fittings. The garment construction. The embellishments. The packaging. The website. The branding. The campaign.
There were absolutely easier and cheaper ways to do certain things.
But I wasn't interested in cutting corners simply to get something to market faster.
If a sample wasn't right, we changed it. If a detail could be better, we worked on it again. If something didn't feel like SWEM, it didn't make the collection.
Even when that meant more time, more sampling and, inevitably, more money.
I wanted someone opening their first SWEM order to feel the level of consideration that had gone into it.
Because for me, this wasn't about launching something.
It was about building something I was genuinely proud to put my name behind.
Starting From Zero
For all the years I'd spent around fashion through social media, actually creating and manufacturing a collection was a completely different world.
I didn't come from a traditional fashion background. I'd never worked for a fashion house, and there was no secret handbook waiting for me when I decided to start.
Tech packs. Sampling. Fabric sourcing. Minimum order quantities. Fit sessions. Grading. Freight. Packaging. Production timelines.
There was so much I simply didn't know.
I've had to ask questions constantly. Find people who know more than I do. Learn an entirely new language. Make decisions about things I'd never even heard of six months earlier.
There have been plenty of moments where I've thought, how does anyone actually do this?
And then you work out the next thing.
And then the next.
Eventually, this idea that existed only in your head starts becoming something you can actually touch.
From Social Media to Something of My Own
Building my social media taught me more than I realised at the time.
For years, I've shared what I genuinely love, what I'm wearing, where I'm travelling and the pieces that make me feel good.
It gave me an opportunity to understand fashion from the customer's side.
I could see what people asked about. What they saved. What they wanted links to. What they actually wore versus what simply looked good in a photograph.
But more importantly, it gave me confidence in my own point of view.
SWEM isn't a collection created because a particular aesthetic happens to be trending.
It's an extension of the world I've naturally been drawn to for years.
Travel. Colour. Femininity. Beautiful fabrics. Dressing up on holiday for absolutely no reason other than because you can.
And Then There Was Greece
Greece was part of the first SWEM collection long before we booked the campaign trip.
In many ways, I designed the collection around it.
Blue has always been my favourite colour, and I knew from the beginning that it needed to define our first collection.
I kept picturing the pieces against the Aegean - the impossibly blue water, white buildings and that particular feeling of a European summer.
Then suddenly I was there, wearing them.
Standing in Greece in pieces I'd spent months thinking about, changing, sampling and obsessing over was surreal.
The colours looked exactly as I'd imagined them.
It was one of those rare moments where something you've pictured for so long exists in front of you and you think, Oh. This is actually real.
Your 30s Aren't Too Late
When you're younger, 30 can sound like an imaginary deadline.
Then you get here and realise how young you actually are.
There is still so much time to change careers. Build something. Learn an entirely new industry. Take a risk. Decide that the path you've been following isn't the one you want anymore.
And when I look back now, my twenties weren't simply the years before I started SWEM.
They were the years I built a new life in a new country.
Built a corporate career.
Travelled as much of the world as I possibly could.
Built my social media.
Developed my personal style.
Fell in love with places that would eventually inspire the brand.
None of it was wasted time.
All of it brought me here.
If anything, I feel more equipped to build this brand now than I ever would have been in my early twenties.
I know myself better.
I trust my instincts more.
I'm more comfortable asking for help when I don't know something.
And I've had enough life experience to understand that almost nothing goes perfectly to plan.
That last one has been particularly useful in fashion.
There Is No Perfect Time
Starting SWEM hasn't been a perfectly linear journey.
There have been production delays. Samples that needed changing. Timelines that moved. Decisions I've second-guessed. Things that cost considerably more than I expected and things I didn't even know I needed to think about until they were suddenly sitting in front of me.
I've learned very quickly that you can plan everything down to the smallest detail and something will still change.
At some point, you have to stop waiting until everything feels completely safe.
I'm still nervous.
I still question things.
And pouring so much of yourself and your own money into something before knowing exactly how people will receive it is terrifying.
But it's also incredibly exciting.
Because whatever happens next, I know I didn't half-do it.
I gave this idea everything I could.
Just Start
I have no idea exactly where SWEM RESORT will be in five or ten years.
Of course I have dreams for it - very big ones.
But right now, I'm trying to appreciate what it means simply to have started.
To go from arriving in Australia at 17 and building a new life from scratch, to building a corporate career, travelling the world, growing a community online and eventually sitting in fittings discussing millimetres of a garment I'd once only imagined.
To take something from notes in my phone to sketches, samples, fittings, a campaign in Greece, a website and finally a collection that people can actually wear.
Maybe I didn't start SWEM despite being in my 30s.
Maybe I'm able to build it the way I want to because I'm in my 30s.
I'm not starting late.
I'm starting with more experience, more confidence, a stronger sense of self and a much clearer understanding of what I want to create.
And I've also learned that while backing yourself is important, having someone you love look at you and say, “I back you too”, can make all the difference.
If you're reading this with an idea you've been quietly thinking about whether you're 30, 40, 50 or beyond, you don't necessarily need to know exactly how you're going to get there before you begin.
Sometimes you just have to back yourself and start.
Chanel x
Founder, SWEM RESORT
