In a world where outdoor apparel rarely makes room for style, Danielle Vague dared to ask: Why not fish in a dress?
Her business, Northern Tide Apparel, stemmed from this question. After countless days on the boat with her husband and male friends, Danielle grew tired of the boxy fits and masculine designs of traditional fishing attire. In response, she designed a fishing dress for women of all shapes and sizes, featuring colourful, eye-catching patterns.
“I wanted to remain feminine but still do the activity I wanted to do,” Danielle says.
The entrepreneur explains that there are logistical problems with men’s outdoor clothing, too – for women, pants make things difficult when nature calls and you’re on a boat in the middle of a lake.
“When nature calls, you have to literally strip off,” she points out. “So with a dress, you can just pop your bum over the side, and nobody has any idea of what you’re really doing.”
Danielle also made her dress breastfeeding friendly, with button-up fronts and long zips, plus features like concealed hip pockets, full sun protection, and high-quality materials. At launch, she couldn’t find anything quite like her product on the market, though she modestly refrains from claiming the ‘first to market’ title. But with an uncharted path ahead, how did she manage to sell her unique creation?
Reaching an audience with a niche product
Part of the reason behind the dress’s success is that it brings several practical elements together in one piece of clothing.
“You’ve got your walking gear, you’ve got your fishing and outdoor gear,” she explains. “Everything’s kind of very separated, and things don’t cross over.”
Though she started out with a specific target market in mind – women who fish – it seemed that many women were looking for something combining elements that had previously existed only in separate garments. Danielle quickly found that her designs attracted a much broader audience than she had thought.
“Now I’m definitely finding it’s just any outdoor-loving woman who wants sun protection while remaining feminine and stylish. If you’re hiking, travelling, camping…gardening is a huge one as well.”
How does Danielle make contact with this sort of outdoor-loving woman? While the usual culprits – Facebook, Instagram, etc. – have been key, she’s also engaged an active group of ambassadors who rep her products online.
“I have a beautiful group of women, they’re kind of strong women in their field, women in recreational fishing…who have offered their time and images and things like that,” she says.
Danielle’s social media centres authentic images of women wearing her products. Her customers send her lots of user-generated content, which she shares unedited on her pages.
“I think people connect better, being able to look for a woman of a similar age, a similar size, similar body, body shape,” she explains. “I’m trying to just be very real, and I think that connects with a lot of women as well.”
Danielle’s product is such a gamechanger that it has attracted international attention without any direct overseas marketing. She has earned herself a solid following in the US, and has just been named a finalist for the 62nd Australian Export Awards.
“I haven’t been targeting [overseas markets] specifically yet, and somehow I’ve dripped through,” she says. “I think maybe some of my ads have trickled out there by mistake. Maybe where I rank in Google has made an impact…People have also been tagging and sharing on social media.”
Challenges along the way
As with the other niche and luxury business owners that we interviewed, ISB asked Danielle how her business has fared in terms of the cost-of-living crisis. With many consumers cutting back on non-essential spending – including on hobbies – how has the fishing dress fared, in terms of sales?
“We’ve definitely felt the effects of the cost of living,” Danielle says. “But to be outdoors and to do an outdoor task doesn’t have to actually cost that much, and getting outdoors…is heavily promoted still. [The outdoors] isn’t a consideration to drop or let go of, that’s kind of a part of life in Australia.”
In terms of being a niche product, Danielle says she’s had her share of manufacturing hiccups and stockist misunderstandings. The outdoor shops that she sells to are predominantly male-owned, which has led to her having to ‘prove’ her product. She has also found difficulty with manufacturers, who weren’t receptive to crafting the designs that Danielle had created all by herself.
“They much prefer to mass produce and do what they want to do,” she says. “Because I think their belief in what you’re doing isn’t really there. They up the prices as well, thinking it’s going to be a waste of their time.”
Despite the challenges, Danielle is immensely proud of the community she has created around her brand.
“Success for me is about building a following of women who feel empowered, who feel that they’ve got choice and who feel confident when they’re out and about,” she reflects.
This article first appeared in issue 47 of the Inside Small Business quarterly magazine
