Made with Purpose
We started Brashies four years ago with one simple, urgent idea. Kids should be easier to see in the water. That was it. A mum watching her son disappear into a crowd of dark swimwear at a busy beach, a phone call to a sister-in-law, and a decision to make something that did not yet exist.
What we did not fully anticipate was how much that one idea would teach us about what it actually takes to bring a product to life. The manufacturing journey behind Brashies is one we have never told in full. We are telling it now because we think honesty matters, and because the decisions we have made along the way say more about who we are as a brand than any marketing campaign ever could.
Where it started — made in Australia
Our first instinct was to make Brashies in Australia. It felt right. We are an Australian brand, built by Australian mums, for Australian families. We wanted to keep it on home soil.
What we quickly discovered is that Australian garment manufacturing, for all its talent and quality, is not set up for a small swimwear brand trying to produce a full range from scratch. There is no single factory that does everything. At our peak of trying to manufacture locally we were working with eight different suppliers across different components and construction processes. Eight. That meant eight sets of communications, eight quality control conversations, eight points of failure, and a landed cost that made it impossible to price our product accessibly for the families we were trying to serve.
We made it work for as long as we could. But eventually the reality was clear. Australian manufacturing at that scale, for a bootstrapped business with no outside funding, was not viable. That was a hard truth to sit with, and we sat with it for a while before we moved.
Bali — ethical production, real standards
When we made the decision to move manufacturing offshore we were adamant about one thing. If we could not be Australian made, we would be ethically made. Those were not negotiable.
We found a certified factory in Bali, Indonesia that we genuinely believed in. Above award wages. Health insurance for workers. Responsible production practices. Digital water-conscious printing technology that significantly reduced water usage compared to traditional swimwear manufacturing methods. Recycled fabrics. Biodegradable packaging. We did not just ask about these things, we verified them. We held ourselves to the standard we would want as customers, and we held our factory to the same standard.
Bali gave us quality we were proud of and a supply chain we could stand behind. We grew. Our community grew. And eventually we reached the point where the partnership could no longer give us what the business needed to take the next step. Volume, margins and the ability to start exploring wholesale all pointed in the same direction.
China — the decision we did not take lightly
We know how "made in China" sounds to some people. We made the decision anyway, because we refused to let the size of our ambition shrink to fit our comfort zone. But we did not walk into it blindly or cheaply.
We engaged a reputable Australian sourcing agent with deep knowledge of ethical manufacturing in China to find us the right partner. What they found was a small factory owned by a young couple who are building something they are proud of. They are not a faceless production facility churning out volume for the lowest bidder. They are people who care about the quality of what they make and the reputation they are building, for exactly the same reasons we do.
We went into this partnership with the same non-negotiables we have always had. Ethical working conditions. Fair treatment of workers. A genuine relationship built on shared values, not just a transaction. The difference is that this partnership gives us the volume, consistency and margin structure that finally makes wholesale possible and allows us to bring Brashies to a much wider audience of families.
Why we are telling you this
We are telling you this because we think small brands have a responsibility to be honest about where their products come from. It is easy to lead with "Australian designed" and leave the rest vague. We have never been comfortable with vague.
Every decision we have made about how Brashies is made has come back to the same question we ask about everything. Is this good enough for the families who trust us? Good enough for the parents who found us after a frightening moment at the beach. Good enough for the kids wearing our swimwear in the surf. Good enough for the workers making it.
We started in Australia because it felt right. We moved to Bali because quality and ethics demanded it. We moved to China because growth required it, and because we found partners who met our standards. The geography has changed. The values have not.
Brashies has always been made with purpose. That part has never changed and it never will.
Claire and Vanessa Founders, Brashies
