Meet The Disruptors: Dean and Melanie Flintoft Of SUNSET LOVER On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Find your purpose — this one is significant for us and something we have finally found with Sunset Lover.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dean and Melanie Flintoft.
Sunset Lover may be a new brand; however, its founders Melanie and Dean Flintoft, have a lifetime of experience and success in the industry, having launched seven fashion brands over the past 25 years.
Melanie Flintoft (Creative Director) owned a fashion retail chain, later becoming a designer. Launching her own Australian-made and nationally distributed fashion label set the groundwork for Melanie to gain world-class experience as a Creative Director, launching seven brands culminating in her passion project Sunset Lover.
Dean Flintoft (Managing Director), who was academically and professionally skilled in Economics, launched the early stages of his career in accounting, sales, marketing and design in multiple industries. His professional focus on international sales, global sourcing and distribution proved vital when he and Melanie decided to launch their brands.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Melanie — Having parents that were retailers and fashion agents set my career path early. As soon as I could, I went into the industry by opening a fashion retail store that grew into a chain of 12. This ignited my passion for design, and I eventually started my Australian-made label, which was the seed for many fashion labels and brands to follow.
Dean — I was roped into the industry by Melanie. On our first date, Melanie had me meet her at the pattern maker’s house, and I spent the evening cutting rolls of fabric and making tea for the girls. Certainly not what I had in mind, but I was hooked from the start! Having worked in white goods and furniture, I found the possibilities of the fashion industry (and my relationship with Melanie) far more exciting, so we ended up going into business together…and getting married.
Previously to Sunset Lover, we owned a global house of fast fashion brands. The business relied heavily on wholesale customers and particularly department stores. With the onset of Covid-19 and the subsequent loss of $35m in revenue, we put the company into administration and subsequently for sale. On reflection, we had struggled to find ‘our why’ and our purpose with fast fashion, and we only became aware of the catastrophic consequences of the fast fashion industry in the few years before Covid, which proved to be a catalyst for what was to come.
We understood that the fashion industry is the second most destructive to people and the planet, and we had time to deeply consider whether we should go back into such a catastrophic industry. As we saw, the world didn’t need another trend-based seasonal fashion label. So the golden question was: what do we do now that we are getting older and this is all we know?
The past was reflective of polyester and plastic bags, massive overproduction, wasteful inventory, weekly deliveries of newness and a whole lot of churn-churn-churn!
So the decision was easy — use what we know in an industry we love but use it as a vehicle to make a difference and leave the planet better than how we found it. The model is very different, something our team and we are thoroughly alive for in every sense of the word. ‘Being part of a powerful solution that will impact the present and future generations makes you proud beyond words.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Our goal is 100% compostable and sustainable luxury fashion!
We are unique, and it has its challenges, but we are committed to seeing this through and making it happen. Currently, we are at around 95% compostable and working towards 100%. The many components of a garment, rather than just the fabric, present sustainability challenges that must be considered, such as thread, lining, padding, stretch, printing, dyes, buttons and zips. We are scouring the globe and working with scientists and universities to help with this.
Whatever we take from the land, we want to put back into the land to keep the circularity going.
Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
In our early beginnings, many years ago, we took working from home to a new level — as we were trying to save cash and raise a young family, we decided to keep the office at home for as long as possible. By the end, we had 19 staff coming to the house each day, and it was when we had staff members having meetings in our bedroom that we decided it was probably time to get an office!
It was like having 19 messy kids at home each day, and not only was it a relief when we finally got an office, but productivity improved exponentially, giving us the ability to scale.
The lesson and key takeaway — you can take trying to save money too far, which can be detrimental to the business.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
I doubt they realise it, but Melanie’s stepfather John Goldberg, a commercial lawyer, and her mother, Deb Garland, a fashion wholesale agent and retailer, have been great mentors for us. I am sure they have been very frustrated with us many times over the years as we did not always follow their advice, but they have been a great source of calm during many difficult times.
Putting our previous business into administration and losing everything during Covid was a challenging time full of emotion. Still, John and Deb managed to keep us sane during our most turbulent times.
John Goldberg: “It is how you handle yourself during this time that people will remember”.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
The invention of polyester fabric for clothing in the 1950s appeared to be a positive disruption for the industry, introduced as a miracle fabric that was cheap and could be worn, pulled, and washed without any wrinkling or signs of wear and tear. At the time, these attributes made it a great disruptor but created an environmental catastrophe as the clothes will be in landfills for thousands of years, with toxic microplastics that now permeate the entire planet and food chains.
Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey?
Watch your cash — obvious one, but this has been tricky to manage during periods of high growth in the business. Saying no to opportunities can be a difficult thing to do but sometimes necessary.
Don’t grow for growth’s sake — this is related to the previous one. Getting caught up in the excitement of opportunities and growth is easy.
Find your purpose — this one is significant for us and something we have finally found with Sunset Lover.
We enjoyed our previous businesses and brands and learnt a great deal, but all of them lacked purpose.
Purpose creates uncompromised passion.
Be passionate about your storytelling — understand and build your community. Having a purpose for us and the brand led to a more profound use of the brand for storytelling. We have collaborated with the passionate teams at the South Australian Museum and The Adelaide Botanic Gardens to utilise their archives for print inspiration. This means we go through the millions of objects in the archives to inspire our unique and exclusive prints, bringing to life stories of the past.
Just keep going. No matter what — Despite our experience in scaling our former labels, at times has been frustrating to grow Sunset Lover when we are underfunded. However, the slower pace has given us room and mental bandwidth to consider decisions carefully. We have sacrificed so much to get through when most would quit and get a job. Determination coupled with a passionate vision has powered us through. And it gives us an absolute sense of pride!
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Proving that 100% sustainable and compostable products are commercial will lead us to work with and develop solutions for the industry. We must prove they work first; then, we can commercialise the solutions.
There are so many ideas that will be fun to explore and commercialise:
-Mushroom mycelium
-Seaweed fibre
-Converting polyester textile waste into usable products (not clothes that create microplastics)
-Evolution of waste
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
Yes, a few. In summary, these are:
Movie — The Biggest Little Farm
Documentaries — Kiss the Ground, Seaspiracy, Cowspiracy and Dead White Man’s Clothes on ABC Foreign Correspondent
Book — The Blue Economy by Gunter Pauli
Many years ago, a friend recommended we watch The Biggest Little Farm. It excited us about the possibilities of regenerative farming practices for growing fibres that improve soil health and the environment while providing resources we can use. Then at the end of life, we return them to the soil as compost.
We were particularly motivated by the idea of taking dead soil that has been killed by chemical farming practices, bringing it back to life, and improving our environment. All our clothing is made from natural fibres grown in the ground. Imagine if the clothing you wear is working in harmony with nature, helping to improve our planet rather than creating microplastics and landfill that take thousands of years to break down.
This gave us purpose!
Can you please give us your favourite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
We have had a great and exciting life in the fashion industry, which has led to many challenges in business, including rapid growth and cash flow challenges; the decline of department stores globally and a global pandemic led to the administration and sale of our business. It is during the challenges that quotes provide motivation:
Melanie
“If it was easy, everyone would do it”.
“Success is not final, and failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts”. — Winston Churchill.
Dean
“Never give up, never give up, never give up”. — from a Microsoft ad in the nineties.
“Learn from your mistakes, don’t lose the lesson”.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
A movement targeting the evolution of waste and working in harmony with nature.
There is no such thing as rubbish as everything has a purpose and can be reused, recycled or upcycled into something useful while minimising the impact. Nature provides us with all the solutions we need; we are just not listening, although we can be continually inspired by nature. There is no waste in nature. It is really about optimising opportunities for the entire ecosystem.
How can our readers follow you online?
Dean — I welcome new professional connections on LinkedIn and invite readers to connect on Instagram (@mens_edit).
Melanie — You can join my professional curated network on LinkedIn, and you can find me on Instagram (@melanieflintoft) where I share life on the go and behind the scenes at Sunset Lover.
You’re welcome to visit our life’s work and passion at www.sunsetlover.com and follow the label on Instagram (@sunsetlover_rise)
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Meet The Disruptors: Dean and Melanie Flintoft Of SUNSET LOVER On The Five Things You Need To Shake… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
