Loyal customers flock to Silver by Diamond pop up events

Mrs Wedrat said one of her customers drove seven and half hours to personally shop with them at their outlet at Beef 2024 and then went home, doing a 15-hour round trip.

"She literally just came shopping with us and we get that a lot at our events - we do have people who will come shopping with us because...they can't get it anywhere else and it's nice to be able to come in and have the shopping experience," she said.

Another customer to one of Mrs Wedrat's recent pop ups took her children out of school early to drive a two-hour return trip for the experience of shopping in person rather than online.

Mrs Wedrat's husband, Stephen, who is fully involved in the business since retiring recently from his job as a fire rescue trainer, said the biggest difference for those customers was the experience.

"Yes, they can buy online and we ship to a lot of people, but the key component is the experience and the service we give," he said.

Having people come to the pop ups means Mrs Wedrat and her staff also get to know their customers better.

"So when they ring and say 'Cheynee we love this', I go 'you know what, we've got something else that will suit you much better than that' so we get to know what looks great on our customers and what they like," Mrs Wedrat said.

Based in Bundaberg with a bricks and mortar outlet, Silver by Diamond started "organically" in 2005 when Mrs Wedrat, who is a hairdresser by trade, began making timber jewellery and wearing them to work where her clients admired them and asked for the same.

"I've always had my clothes made, even from a young age, I've always designed my own clothes and had them made," she said.

"We started doing the Paradise Lagoons Campdraft and it grew from there - that got us the attention of a different type of audience and that's my target market now," she said.

Originally, as she lives at the beach, her clothing range was more resort wear, but Mrs Wedrat only designs clothes now that fits the brief of being "feminine, classic and timeless".

"We only use natural fibres, so we only use cotton and linens, fabrics that breath," she said.

"Women who live on the land want fabrics that breath, they don't want anything synthetic - and our clothes are timeless, you can mix and match them, and they last. We have women, who are still wearing our clothes 10 - 15 years on, the same pieces they purchased from us all those years ago."

Unlike some fashion designers, Mrs Wedrat does not do seasonal collections.

"We don't do seasonal wear, we don't release winter ranges or anything like that because where we live, we don't have extreme winters," she said.

"We do frills, bows and bold colours. It's very feminine."

Mrs Wedrat's designs also appeal to a cross section of ages and sizes from women in their '90s to flower girls as young as eight.

And while she doesn't have a favourite design, there are some staple pieces from her collections that she singles out for mention such her linen, high waisted, wide legged pants.

"Our Diana pants are definitely one of our best sellers, as are our cotton drill shorts. They're some of the pieces that women have purchased 10 years ago and they're still wearing them today and they're still in great condition. You can flog them, you just can't kill them basically," she said.

"And our tops - anything that's got a bit of a frill on it, a bow, they're always popular, but we change up our colours all the time."

Before attending events such as Ag-Grow and Beef, Mrs Wedrat designs specific pieces that are exclusive releases for those events.

"So you can't get them anywhere else except for there and we sell out," she said.

"We did bold colours for Beef - we actually did some really bold checks. I've never seen them anywhere else, they were colours and prints that you can't get your hands on anywhere else, with bows and frills.

"We did similar things at Ag-Grow, but just different colours and longer sleeves...but in saying that we're using cottons and linens so you can still wear them in summer."

Everything from the clothing and jewellery to the homewares, Mrs Wedrat designs herself and then has it custom made.

"So we have a team of tailors that do my clothing, I've got leather tailors who do my leather and silversmiths who do our silver and we have just introduced a little bit of resin jewellery and homewares and I have someone that makes that for us as well," she said.

"Everything that we have here is exclusive to us. You cannot buy it anywhere else, we don't wholesale and we don't do massive runs - we don't mass produce and I think that's why the ladies love it so much because you're not going to see yourselves walking down the street 20 times over."

Mrs Wedrat said her fabric and material designs were also key to the popularity of her clothing range.

"They are sourced globally - everywhere throughout the world, there is no specific place that we source our fabrics from - we've got designs that I've been working on for seven months, we have drawn images and we're having them embroidered onto fabric or digitally printed onto fabric," she said.

"I am also working with an indigenous artist whose doing us some art work to have printed on fabric."

As to how she arrived at the name of her business, Silver by Diamond, it's very simple. Mrs Wedrat's maiden name is Diamond and as she started off designing selling silver jewellery after the timber-beaded jewellery pieces, the name made sense.

It also makes sense that as the business marks 20 years of operation next year that there are "some pretty exciting things in the pipeline".

Without elaborating too much, Mrs Wedrat said some of things in the pipeline were a men's fashion line and possibly another bricks and mortar outlet.

"We're always working on something...Stephen is a very creative person. We do have different ideas though, but this will be Stephen's venture. It will be part of Silver by Diamond, but it will be separate as well," she said.

"We have over 100,000 followers on our Instagram (page) from all over the world, but predominately Australia is our customer base and we've got quite a few customers in NZ and we have posted to other countries," she said.

Having a pop up store at the Polo World Cup in Warwick a few years ago also gave them a lot of exposure, but Mrs Wedrat credits her customers loyalty, some of whom have been with her for as long as the business has been operating, for its ongoing success and longevity.

"Country people, they're so loyal and we love doing our events, it's a lot of work and it's a big job, but it's so rewarding as we actually get to see our customers which is lovely," she said.