The founders of accessories label Ausmates, Ray Zheng and Joe Zhou, started their business by accident in August 2015.
The pair had just moved to Sydney from China, where Zheng had been the editor in chief of Kinfolk magazine’s Chinese edition, and were on the hunt for souvenirs to send to friends overseas.
“We found that there were quite limited options when we wanted to buy some gifts for overseas friends, so we started to try and make some designs ourselves,” explains Zheng. “It was the cute and unique local animals who inspired us in the beginning.”
From there the idea took off and Ausmates currently sells a range of colourful mini bags with animal characters on them, as well as a collection of candles that are handmade in Sydney. The label also recently launched A-Studio, which is a range of larger leather bags.
Ausmates will be launching to trade at Life Instyle Sydney in February, and Zheng says he hopes to have stockists nationwide in 2017.
“We are a quite new brand here and still developing,” he says. “We hope more and more people could know us and then encourage us to design more collections in the future.
“We prefer to be stocked in fashion and lifestyle boutique shops, stores that focus on local designs, and design stores that have some tourist customers.”
Although Zheng is eager to get Ausmates products into more Australian stores, he says the best thing about running the business is getting to meet customers face to face.
“We joined the Twilight Market at Carriageworks, Sydney last year and met lots of people who came for Christmas gifts,” he says. “One lady from Singapore told us the mini bags are the perfect gifts for her friends back home, and she bought more than ten bags at a single time…
“I think getting the comments face to face is really a good thing for us—it tells us our design brings some colourful and interesting elements to people’s life.”
This year Zheng is focused on developing new products, both in the candle and bag collections, and is planning to collaborate with local artists on new designs.
By Ruth Cooper
