I’ve loved fashion for as long as I can remember.
As a little girl growing up on a farm in regional Australia, I was always dressing up, creating outfits, and completely fascinated by clothing and self-expression. Fashion felt magical to me — like storytelling you could wear.
After school, I studied music and eventually fell into the world of burlesque performance, where I became obsessed with vintage fashion — especially glamorous 1950s silhouettes, old Hollywood styling, and the art of dressing with intention.
Vintage clothing felt different.
It had soul.
Around that time, I lived in both Sydney and overseas, including time in New York, where I spent hours wandering flea markets, vintage stores, and thrift shops searching for treasures.
I loved the thrill of finding something unique — pieces nobody else would have. An old embroidered jacket. A perfectly worn dress. Vintage denim softened with age. Clothing that already carried a story before it ever reached my wardrobe.
I travelled, explored, collected inspiration, and fell more deeply in love with fashion that felt personal rather than mass-produced.
Eventually, life brought me back to the country.
I met my husband Matt, moved to Temora, and together we built a life on the farm with our four beautiful boys.
But a few years ago, something shifted in me.
I watched the ABC series War on Waste and was completely shocked by the reality of textile waste — the mountains of clothing ending up in landfill, the overconsumption, the sheer volume of garments being discarded.
Then I watched the documentary The True Cost.
And honestly?
I cried.
The documentary exposed the devastating human and environmental cost behind fast fashion — unsafe factory conditions, garment workers being paid impossibly low wages, environmental destruction, polluted waterways from textile production, and the relentless pressure for consumers to buy more and more cheap clothing.
I couldn’t unsee it.
I realised I could no longer support the fast fashion industry in the same way.
So I made myself a challenge:
For one whole year, I wouldn’t buy a single new piece of clothing.
Everything had to be secondhand, vintage, op-shopped, swapped, or pre-loved.
Not long into that challenge, I found out I was pregnant — but I still committed to the entire year.
And honestly?
It changed my life.
It completely transformed the way I viewed fashion.
I began shopping slower. More intentionally. More creatively.
I discovered that some of the most beautiful wardrobes are built through patience, storytelling, and individuality — not endless consumption.
During that time, I even spoke about the experience on ABC Radio, sharing what I was learning about sustainable fashion and mindful consumption.
One statistic stayed with me deeply:
There are already enough clothes on this planet to clothe the next six generations of people.
That thought never left me.
At the same time, I kept coming back to something else I’ve always loved about vintage and pre-loved clothing:
The stories they carry.
I love imagining where garments have been before finding me.
Who wore them.
What moments they lived through.
What dance floors they spun across.
What heartbreaks, adventures, dinners, road trips, or love stories they witnessed.
Sometimes it feels like clothing carries memory.
Like even when a person is gone, a small piece of their story continues on through the garments they once loved.
That idea stayed with me for years.
And slowly, Dress With Heart Vintage began to form.
A space built around romance, storytelling, sustainability, individuality, and giving beautiful clothing another life to live.
Today, Dress With Heart Vintage is a curated world of vintage treasures, prairie romance, western soul, and thoughtfully chosen pre-loved pieces.
Every collection is chosen with intention.
Every garment is part of a continuing story.
And every order means more to me than you could possibly know.
Thank you for being here and supporting this little dream built from heart, history, and a deep belief that fashion can still be meaningful.
Love always,
Ali
Founder of Dress With Heart Vintage