‘Now-or-never’ moment that launched a fashion empire

Nikki Parkinson was comfortable in her career of 20 years, but a decision to make a change led her down a path she would never have predicted.

Nikki Parkinson’s “now-or-never” moment came when her husband began commuting from their home on the Sunshine Coast down to Brisbane for a new job.

After 20 years in journalism, and with a young family at home, it turned into the catalyst she needed to make a change.

“I knew something wasn’t going to gel with the family, so I needed a flexible working environment,” Nikki tells news.com.au.

“And in hindsight, it was probably great that I was so naive about what starting a business actually looked like, because otherwise I might have hesitated for longer, but it ended up being the best accidental decision.”

The former fashion and beauty editor decided to put her sartorial experience into practice, and launched Styling You, a website originally meant to promote a fledgling styling business - but one that quickly morphed into something far bigger.

Nikki Parkinson made a big decision in 2008. Picture: Jamie Hanson

It was 2008, and social media was just starting to take off in a real way.

“Again, I kind of just accidentally landed in the right place at the right time,” laughs Nikki.

“In the early days, Twitter (now X) was just like this very fun cocktail party to be at, and it connected me immediately to all of these people who were calling themselves bloggers, whether it was in Australia or overseas. And I went - hang on - this is kind of what I’m doing on my website. It’s a blog! I just need to rephrase how I write and make it less old school journalism like I was used to doing, and more conversational. I needed to start conversations with people.”

“I was immediately obsessed,” she says of the gear-change, something that quickly established Nikki as a household name on the Australian blogging scene.

“I connected very quickly with some incredible women - who they used to, in a derogatory way, call ‘mummy bloggers’ - and some of those women are still really good friends today. I loved the storytelling aspect of blogging, and very quickly I was able to build a community.”

This was all happening pre-Instagram, says Nikki, so her entire community revolved around the blog.

Nikki says there’s no ‘romance story’ to her success.

“It was just like a coming together of like-minded women, and they’ve kind of grown up with me,” she recalls. “I was 41 at the time, and now I’m 57 and some of those people have been there since 2008, which is quite incredible.”

“But there’s no romance story here,” Nikki adds. “You still have to pay the mortgage, the kids still need to eat, so I was doing a lot of things to bring in the money during those early years. I had a number of side-hustle freelance gigs on the side of my side-hustle business!”

And so, as she consistently built her community, “hustle” was precisely what Nikki did, until she was able to make Styling You a household name.

After an intervening decade that also made her an author (Unlock Your Style was published in 2014 as a result of the blog’s success), Nikki’s next business move came about like many before it, through a connection she’d made online.

“I had an everyday style community that I’d built up from 2013, made up of women who shared what they were wearing every day,” she says.

“And there was a woman I’d connected with who is a manufacturer here in Australia, and she said, ‘how about you do your own label?’”

“I think there had been wine and cheese involved in this conversation,” laughs Nikki. “Because naively, I said ‘sure’!”

Thus, in February 2019, Nikki launched her fashion label, born of countless conversations with women all over Australia and the world, and an understanding of what they needed from their wardrobes.

A 'now-or-never' moment led to Nikki Parkinson starting her website and fashion label, Styling You.

“I wanted to solve a wardrobe problem I’d seen and heard time and time again from women in midlife,” Nikki says. “And that was to create non-boring basics that actually fit.”

“It’s so easy to be seduced by the sparkly showpony, but if you don’t have those foundation pieces, you literally don’t have anything to wear every day.

“In the 40-and-up age group, we tend to carry with us some lovely curves, so I wanted my clothes to be cut to fit curves, and to be created from fabrics that have stretch or elastic in them but that still look polished. I wanted you to pull on a pair of pants and not be worried that they were going to be uncomfortable all day long. So that’s what we did.”

As well as comfortable basics that fit well, it was important to Nikki that the Styling You label solved another common fashion problem for women in her community: representation.

“I would hear from my community all the time that they couldn’t visualise themselves in a garment they saw on a website, because they were mostly models of a traditional size and height,” she says.

“With the rise of online shopping, you need more visual cues to be able to comfortably purchase something, and that’s what we’ve been able to do, which I’m very proud of. It’s just my small little disruption in a very big space, but it is one that I believe has helped the brand navigate through some tricky times.”

Her path to success hasn’t all been smooth sailing.

“Tricky times”, as Nikki calls them, have been plentiful of late, something the founder believes she’s come through because of an ability to adapt and change.

“The last 18 months have brought some of the toughest challenges as a business owner because of the economic downturn,” she explains.

“When you have a product based business, you’re ordering everything so far in advance, and you’re ordering based on stats that you’re quite confident about, and then this external factor happens, and you realise what you’re offering is essentially a discretionary spend.”

“We took massive hits last year,” Nikki admits. “It was really tough, and it’s still tough. If I didn’t have the community behind the label, we wouldn’t be in business at all.”

Nikki says that since interest rates first started to rise, she’s seen a marked difference in the way people shop online.

“People are still shopping,” she says.

“But they’re shopping in a more considered way and also waiting for discounts. If you’re running a small business, that’s a very stressful environment to operate in. I’m grateful that we’re made in Australia. I’m grateful I don’t have to invest in such a big quantity of everything, and that if something is popular, I can get it re-cut and remade.

“It’s helped me to change the business model of that side of things, to be more sustainable, both for the environment, and also for my own business. That adaptability - and listening to what my community wants and needs - is what I trust in.”