Clare Barrins didn’t think she was asking too much when she set out to look for a pair of swim shorts. The Melbourne-born, San Francisco-based business executive searched “high and low” but the shorts she wanted failed to materialise.

“I was surprised,” she says via Zoom. It’s evening in Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Barrins is about to put her children to bed. She will work tonight – as she does most nights – on Sheila, her range of swimwear (there are shorts, tops and a one-piece style). Tomorrow, she’ll head to her day job at Apple, where she is chief of staff in the business development division.