Today it might be a globally recognised, locally thriving fashion brand, but when its founders, sisters Lizzie and Georgie Renkert, look back to where their passion for fashion began, it was in their Mosman childhood family home styled by the keen eye of their mother Judy.

North shore-raised Judy Renkert, who grew up in Roseville and Wollstonecraft, loved cushions. Florals, prints, chenille and jacquard, you name it, she had them. Her penchant for throw pillows was so strong she had a cupboard of cushions under the stairs that she would regularly re-style the house and wow her daughters with when they arrived home from Mosman Public — and later Queenwood for Georgie and SCECGS Redlands in Cremorne for Lizzie.

“She made our home amazing,” recalls Lizzie. “Lots of where we are inspired, comes from mum’s interiors and her cushions. We would come home from school and she would have completely re-done the whole house in a day. The house would always look incredible.

“For mum it wasn’t a fashion thing, it was an interiors thing, but there is definitely a melding of that with what we do and the aesthetic at our core. We’re a prints and florals-based brand and I still have a thing for cushions, I love them.”

Judy and her husband Stephen, who was raised in Chatswood, never thought their two daughters would go into business together, let alone start a fashion label. (Brother Drew lives in Seaforth and works in a completely different field to the two energetic, rambunctious sisters — “he’s a physio, he’s much quieter, more practical and sporty than us,” says Lizzie.)

Their childhood spent between Mosman and the north shore was imaginative and adventurous though, paving the way for their later creative pursuits.

“My grandparents lived in Northwood and Gordon and my aunty, uncle and cousins in Killara and Pymble,” recalls Lizzie. “We spent much of our childhood on the north shore. Our grandma, who’s no longer with us, used to take us to Marion St Theatre every holidays and grandpa would take us bush walking in Roseville. We have beautiful, happy memories of our time there.”

The Renkerts were thrilled when the sisters decided to start their fashion label in 2013.

“Mum and dad love that we’re working together, that we’re happy and we’re not arguing,” adds Georgie. “If we were arguing, this wouldn’t work, we wouldn’t do it, because family is everything. If anything happened that came in the way of the closeness of our family, that wouldn’t work.

“We’re the only people that we could each work with like this!”

The label, which is now stocked in leading boutiques and retail destinations around the world, including Myer, Harvey Nichols, Bloomingdales, The Iconic and ShopBop, as well as 27 boutiques across Australia, was born as much out of necessity as it was a sisterly desire to work together.

Lizzie, a magazine editor who spent 10 years at Marie Claire and nine years at Madison was left “absolutely devastated” when the latter title was closed during her tenure as editor and she was unexpectedly made redundant.

One month later, she was pregnant with her second child, son Max, now four, and a life back in the world of media no longer seemed tenable.

Georgie meanwhile had spent 10 years working for The Apparel Group, travelling the world buying clothes for major Australian retailers such as Sportsgirl, developing a keen eye for identifying trends while giving them a unique Australian twist.

Feeling like it was a case of “now or never,” the sisters and kindred spirits saw a gap in the market for boxo-luxe dresses that didn’t cost the earth said “let’s just do it”.

Six years later, the floaty, feminine label known for their bespoke floral prints, delicate detailing and special occasion frocks are staging their fourth runway show at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia.

This Sunday, ahead of their show at the Carriageworks on Tuesday May 14, also marks the fourth Mother’s Day they have spent together wrangling racks and sorting seating charts.

Neither Lizzie — mother to Luella, seven and Max, four, with husband Andy Foy — or Georgie, — mother to Delilah, 18 months with husband Jake Meadows — will be spending it with breakfast in bed or a leisurely lunch like most Aussie mums. This second Sunday in May like the three others before it will be all about the hustle.

“Mother’s Day just tends to be a bit chaotic for us,” says Lizzie. “This is our fourth year and we don’t know what we’ll be dealing with on that day. Its just part of it for us, we love Fashion Week and we love showing so it’s not like on Mother’s Day we’re thinking ‘oh god this is terrible,’ we’re kind of in our element.”

This year’s Resort ‘20 collection, titled Boheme Heart, features a crisp white, cornflower blue and soft honey gold palette marking a departure from the label’s signature pink but a return to the colours of the playground in which they live and grew up in.

“The Bathers Pavilion was our original inspiration for the collection, Balmoral has definitely inspired us, I spend a lot of time down there, I go walking and take the kids in the summer,” said Lizzie.

“It was almost subconscious, the beach, the Pavilion, the rotunda, it was home. We just adore this city and Balmoral aesthetically for me would be one of the most beautiful parts of Sydney. The collection is being shot at Chinamans Beach too.”

While Georgie lives in Paddington (where the brand is soon to open its first standalone store in July), for Lizzie when kids arrived after 12 years living in Darlinghurst, she felt a “pull to go home”.

“Even though I was only over the bridge, I wanted to go home,” she recalls of the desire to move back to the north. “My parents are there and it’s just so gorgeous. I catch my breath every single time I drive down Awaba St to The Esplanade, I just think it’s amazing. Mum and dad live at Clifton Gardens, it’s beautiful. I like walking a lot too so I take bushwalks and it’s a different pace to the city and I can park the car outside the house no problem, things like that. And I’m still only 20 minutes from the city, it’s the best of both worlds.

“It doesn’t feel overcrowded, it feels like a bit of a village, there are things like Jimmy’s Fruit Shop on the corner and my favourite restaurant Il Perugino that I have been going to forever, so it really does feel like home even though so much has changed.

“There was a time when Georgie wanted to move to the house behind us and I said ‘I love you, but we need to be in separate suburbs’.

“But for both of us, Mosman will always be ‘home’.”