Edwina Forest and Adrian Norris, the co-founders of AJE have developed one of Australia’s fastest-growing fashion brands - 15 years in the making of an overnight success - A brand that is often compared to Zimmermann,
AjE (an acronym for “Adrian joins Edwina”, ) is for women in touch with their inner girl and now employs about 500 people and turnover over $100m with healthy margins (By comparison, Cue has 1200 employees, Zimmermann has 900.)
Beth Glancey is the new chief executive of AjE. (Whose sister is chief of staff at Atlassian),
Forest and Norris have assembled an amazing board , which includes former Bank of Queensland CEO Stuart Grimshaw and they have a small group of committed Investors , Shareholders and advisers
Investors
- Norris and Forest retain the majority share
- Norris’ father
- James Roche (an executive director at Roche Holdings, a mining group) and
- Thomas Mort, whose family owns the Bodalla dairy business (Mort also runs TSM Investments)
The journey
Adrian Norris and Edwina Forest met while
Edwina had a fashion shop in Noosa called Strada - stocking brands such as Kit Willow, Josh Goot and Sass and Bide while Adrian was a fashion editor.
They decided to take the plunge and together developed the aje brand . Adrian moved to Bali in 2007 where he set up production .
Their business model was a mix of wholesaling and direct-to-consumer, opening their first store under Hugo’s in Sydney’s Potts Point.
Their physical stores were pumping while their wholesale business was chewing cash !!
“We were working our arses off and had nothing to show for it,” says Norris “Retail was the way to make money,”
“People would pay us straight away, instead of this big long production cycle where you might never see the money, or you might see $1000 nine months later instead of the $30,000 the customers owed you.”
Between 2011 and 2015, AJE closed its wholesale business and opened two new stores in Chapel Street, Melbourne, and James Street, Brisbane.
With the money that began flowing in, they hired their first staff members and the flywheel was created !!!
Ending AJE’s wholesale business was a game changer and the retail business became a cash cow .
AJE dipped its toes back into wholesale in 2015 with larger accounts - and can be found in David Jones, Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue in the US, La Samaritaine in France, Selfridge’s in the UK and Etoile in the Middle East, as well as online at Net-a-Porter and Matches Fashion.
They launched AJE Athletica in 2021 – as the athleisure wear became popular - and there are now 15 standalone Athletica stores and in August, the brand hosted its first-ever runway show.
A Secret Sauce of Success
Glancey describes Adrian Norris as a “force of nature with a financial nous.
- Having coaches and mentors have been a game changer - says Adrian . he employs three different personal trainers, a mental health coach, a life coach and an energy healer named Tiki.
- Remaining humble
Despite the company’s success, edwina says she still feels humble -“I look back and think, ‘how did we survive?’”
The people who love the Brand
Tanya (my daughter) wearing AJE for her wedding :)
Where to from here
This year, AJE showed at Australian Fashion Week for the ninth time
Next year it plans to open in New York.
With 25pc of sales being overseas, Norris wants NYC to be the first of many international stores and a stepping stone to ultimately showing at New York Fashion Week.
In 2022, retail sales grew by 279 per cent and revenue was up 217 per cent, and there is a rumour that Country Road Group wants to buy the Brand!
Norris is looking at AJE being a unicorn in the not too distant future !
I for one think that he will achieve his goal sooner than later!
Inspired by The Fashion issue of AFR Magazine is out on Friday, August 25 inside The Australian Financial Review.
