Amber DaysCorina Muir

Growing up, proud Yorta Yorta / Boonwurrung woman Corina Muir says many people

around her didn’t expect much from her professionally. In fact, she didn’t either. But,

once she recognized her inner-strength and how to harness it, she had the courage to

start her own company. Her children’s apparel brand Amber Days not only produces

beautiful garments made in collaboration with Indigenous women and women of colour

from around Australia, but does so while adhering to strict guidelines around ethical

manufacturing processes and employment. With the byproducts of her brand being

community, connection to Country and culture, and a tremendous sense of pride, Corina

can now witness her successes every day.

Hi Corina, tell us a bit about yourself.

My name’s Corina, I’m a Yorta Yorta / Boonwurrung mother, I live on the surf coast on Wathaurong Country, and I own a business called Amber Days. Amber Days is an ethical and sustainable children’s wear label, we collaborate with other Aboriginal women to create our fabric designs and our collections.

How did Amber Days start?

Growing up, I’ve always been very passionate about environmental issues and caring for Country and about my culture and identity. I was trying to figure out where my passions fit. I would work in community, but then I’d get burnt out and I’d go venture into my creative side, but then that wasn’t fulfilling enough and I’d go back to community. I was kind of jumping between both.

I was in Tasmania when I made the decision. Travelling from one side to the other and camping on Cradle Mountain and doing lots of hiking. I was about to get back on the boat to go back over to Melbourne and I decided that I really wanted to pursue my dreams of starting a fashion label and working within the sustainability space in fashion.

I got back and all of a sudden this opportunity came up, an Indigenous fashion program in collaboration with Billy Blue College of Design. Originally I saw it and I showed it to my partner at the time, saying, “You should apply for this, this would be a really great opportunity” and then I sat down and was like, “Hang on, no, I want to apply for this”. I had no background in fashion at all, I had no idea what it meant to put together a fashion mood board and all the bits and pieces that they needed for the application, but I did it and I got it. I had to move to Sydney within a week which was really exciting. But then when I was in Sydney I found that at Billy Blue College of Design, they were really great but it was like everything they were teaching was hurting my soul, I guess because it was not aligning with my values.

“I didn’t know that I could succeed in this, but I knew my whole life that I was ready to take on anything that got in my way.”

It was amazing because I was living in this tiny little bungalow; didn’t even have a kitchen but I was cooking outside. It was really inspiring. I was just drawing and designing and loving life, but at the same time I was missing my family and it was all getting really hard. I was sitting in these classes, listening to these amazing lecturers talk about branding and fashion and all I could think about was all the injustices in the fashion industry, how it was hurting people. I was like, “I can’t be in this industry.”

Later on I realised that was just me not being mature enough to take what they were teaching and using that for good. I wish that I could’ve, in that space, used what they were saying to be able to build my own label. Maybe, subconsciously I have held onto some of the information that I learnt there.

This was about six or seven years ago and all of the yoga and activewear that was out at the time was really sporty, it was like Nike and Adidas. I was working on a sustainable yoga-wear, leisure-wear label that you could go to a cafe in and then to the gym. I spent a lot of time thinking about the values I wanted to instill in the label, and I named it Amber Days. It took a different turn, but the values stayed the same.

It’s really common for people to change their businesses direction to fit their lifestyle. What inspired your change from yoga-wear to children’s wear?

I fell pregnant unexpectedly. Being the type of person that I am, I started researching. I wanted to prepare and have all these cute little clothes for my baby girl and I wanted to make sure that the clothes that I was buying were ethical, that the people who were making them were getting a fair wage, and had fair working conditions. I wanted to know about the impacts of creating the cloth, the dyeing of the fabric –every step. I’m thinking about bringing my baby into this world and dressing her in something cute at the expense of others or the environment and it didn’t sit well with me.

I found out it’s actually really difficult to find clothing that ticks every single box. Quite often labels will stand out because of their environmental policies, or they’ll stand out because of their ethical trade policies, but it’s hard to find labels that do both. That was when I realised that this was something I really wanted to pursue. I had my daughter and I started working on it [the label] really slowly. The first few months were kind of crazy; no sleep. Well the first few years were crazy with no sleep, but the first few months were more intense.

I went back to work when Saph was about six months old. I wasn’t ready personally to go back to work –our rhythm was still waking up and feeding whenever she wanted to feed, we still had that slow, day-to-day rhythm –but I guess I felt the pressure of being a woman and being out of the workforce for too long. Centrelink benefits are really low, so staying out of work puts you right under the poverty line. Trying to survive off that was really stressful.

I worked for an amazing organisation: SEED, a collective of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people working in sustainability. It was all of my passions put together, I loved my work, but I wanted to be home with Sapphire. That led me to make a decision to quit my job and work full time on Amber Days. That was in February and then I ended up launching in October that same year.

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You said that companies will often focus on environmental impact or fair trade and taking a stand against modern slavery, but with your label you’re trying to do both?

Both and beyond.

Tell us more.

With any product you’re buying you really have to research every part of it because there are so many ways to cover up certain things. Like the dyes that are being used in fabrics, which flow into our waterways. They poison water systems for poorer communities, the homes of people who are working in these factories. It affects whether people have clean water for their children and their families, and this is usually people of colour and Indigenous people. Quite often women and children are the worst affected and we’re producing clothing for children.

So, I am investigating each step in the production line and making decisions around how we can collaborate with Aboriginal women and women of colour in Australia. Each range showcases the work of Aboriginal women artists. This has created this beautiful supportive community of women. We are supporting each other, pushing each other, guiding, giving advice. We are there for each other when you’re having a bad day – which in business is really hard and quite often happens – it’s all these little other things that are not just the environmental, the social. It’s also grassroots change.

You’re contributing to the promotion of Aboriginal culture and stories by collaborating with local artists, the ethical production of the clothing items, and the environmental impacts of the fabric and dyeing processes. And you acknowledge that these three things are all entwined because it’s all affecting women, children and Indigenous people.

Yeah, definitely. It’s all of those things and community-building. It might seem like one little thing but if we’re at markets and having conversations with kids about the prints on our clothes, about the story behind it. They really want to learn. That’s about creating that change. Part of Amber Days is strengthening our Indigenous kids’ identity and how they feel about themselves, but it’s also about strengthening all children, and all of their connection to Country. It’s about starting conversations around what Country you’re on, sharing something about what you’ve done to care for Country, all those sorts of things.

How did you go about your research process? Even for a conscious consumer, it’s hard to find information. For example, how did you know to look into dyes that were the least harmful to the waterways?

I think I’ve been brought up to question everything. I’m really lucky in the sense that I’ve been brought up by a lot of strong women. My mum has always encouraged me to question things, from a young kid. She’s always been like, “You dig deeper, you figure out your values for yourself.” And researching is really, really hard. Sometimes you can get stuck going down a rabbit hole because you’re chasing the transparency of a label, but it can be going from factory to factory to factory to factory before it [the item] gets to the factory that sews it – and that’s just the fabrics and the trimmings, like press-studs and all these sorts of things. It is really challenging to research, but for us, we just make sure that we’ve got all of the accreditations that we want to have. So we use GOTS-

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certified (Global Organic Textile Standard) organic fabrics that have been dyed using GOTS-certified organic dyes. Our manufacturer is fair trade, he’s a small family-owned business and they go above and beyond for sustainability. We manufacture what we can onshore with people that we know. We’ve built beautiful relationships with mums that work from home; our seamstress lives in Sassafras in the Dandenongs. That was a really beautiful collaboration because she sewed the collection that featured artwork based on the Dandenong Ranges. The artist and myself both grew up in that area and it was a story about our shared childhood and it was being sewn on that country.

Unfortunately, sometimes there’s going to be parts where there is no way of knowing 100% but you’ve just got to make the best-informed choice that you can at the time. We always aim to be as transparent as possible and are always aiming to do better than we have the day before.

Does this make pricing difficult? Products that align to these values are often far more expensive to produce. How do you communicate this with your customers?

That’s really hard. You just have to remember what the goal is. Sometimes you might not make much on one product, but it has a message that I feel is worth investing my time and energy into. Something else might have a bigger profit margin, so they even out. It might be the collaboration that had so much more meaning. We’re never going to have a huge margin; printing ethically, paying workers properly. I think that’s a mindset that is really hard to break because we are all so used to getting things really fast, really cheap and disposing of it, but I guess part of our ethos is also about trying to support that change of slow fashion – of meaningful and mindful purchases, about knowing where it’s coming from, what’s gone into it. It makes that piece of clothing that you’re wearing so much more powerful.

It’s really tough, we’ve gotten used to fast, cheap everything and, like you say, it’s shifting a whole mindset. You might not need 20 items, you might need three really high-quality ones.

Definitely, and I love listening to my grandmother talk about her childhood. They grew up with not much but her dad (so my great grandfather) would take her and her sister

“Now’s the time for Aboriginal businesses. There’s so much more support out there for us.”

shopping, once in summer and once in winter. They would get one new item, maybe it’s a jacket or a pair of shoes, but it’d be leather shoes or a woollen jacket. My grandma was always talking about fabrics and had me checking labels from when I was really little. As a kid I was like, “Oh no, I don’t want to wear polyester.” It kind of drilled into me the importance of quality fabrics. We use 100% organic linen and 100% organic cotton, they’ve been dyed using plant-based dyes; once they degrade into the soil there’s no toxins and there’s nothing left over.

It just goes back into the earth.

Goes back into the earth. I find now that if grandparents are buying clothes for their grandchildren they’re more likely to understand the importance. They see organic linen they’re like, “Wow, that’s a really beautiful fabric.” You know, there’s been linen that’s been around for hundreds of years. Linen is such a beautiful, hearty fabric. The more you wash it, the softer it gets.

Sounds like you have always been really passionate about this, not all kids are checking labels and saying, “I’m not wearing polyester.” Did you always dream of having a fashion label?

Mum has a funny story about when I was about two, and one of my first sentences was, “Does this match?”

Growing up, I never thought that I’d be able to be a businesswoman – let alone have a fashion label. Growing up as an Aboriginal woman in a lower socio-economic area, I had

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a lot going on through high school... A lot of barriers that I had to overcome and, to be honest, I didn’t think I would become anything. I didn’t finish high school. I was told that I wasn’t very academic, that I wasn’t going to make anything of myself. Art was always something that I loved, but then I got put into what they call GAP. They put all the kids that weren’t passing into a class, and we basically did nothing. Then I got kicked out of high school… So I was like, “Here I am, kicked out of high school.”

The narrative when I was growing up about Aboriginal people was that we weren’t going to make anything of ourselves, so I guess I never thought that I could build a business. It took a good 10 years to be able to change that for myself and figure out that I actually can make something of myself and that I deserve that.

What kind of things do you tell your daughter to change this narrative for her? Low expectations of Aboriginal students are still having such negative impacts on young people. What do you tell your daughter, what do you tell your nieces about the kind of lifestyles that women can create for themselves?

Sapphire is – we all are – just born ready to take on whatever it takes. I didn’t know that I could succeed in this, but I knew my whole life that I was ready to take on anything that got in my way. I was a quiet, reserved, very timid, pretty shy, introverted person but if I needed something I’ve always had that fight. And my daughter came out fighting, she’s always been this burst of energy. She has boldness and leadership in her. I really try and question when the word bossy comes to mind and I’m like, “No, she’s a leader.” I actively try not to squish that down. While also bringing her attention to “Are you taking care of somebody else?” and “Are you listening to somebody else?” but never ever squishing down that boldness. That’s something that I will always support and elevate and really value in her.

She’s so lucky that she’s been brought up coming to work with me every day. She’s come to really big places where she’s had to sit and listen and be around all these amazing leaders and in particular Aboriginal women that are leading entrepreneurs. She came to work with me every day when I worked in an environmental organisation, so that’s been her whole life. I’ve always tried to make sure she knows exactly how special it is to be an Aboriginal child. I have tried to connect her as much as I could, especially in ways that I didn’t get. I remember one night we came back from an entrepreneurs’ night, it was 10:30 at night and Saph was about two, running down our apartment hallway singing “Always was always will be Aboriginal land”. I thought, ”If you were screaming anything else I’d be telling you to be quiet because everyone’s asleep,” but I’m just so proud of her.That’s coming from inside her. Lately she’s been telling me her blood is red, black and yellow. She sees the flag and she’s like, “That’s my flag” and she’s been saying that since she was one. It’s really beautiful to see her strength and such a strong connection to her culture. And she’ll just teach me beautiful things… We’ll be sitting on the balcony and she’ll see a feather and she’ll be like, “Our earth mother made that” and I’m just like, “Aw thanks baby”

Your label has a really beautiful aesthetic and a strong brand narrative. Do you have a background in marketing? Or did you create it intuitively?

Like I said, I didn’t even finish high school, I don’t have any fashion degrees, I studied for a few months at Billy Blue but then came back to Melbourne. What often gets in our way, if we don’t have a formal education, is that you doubt yourself all the time... like, “I didn’t

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“As women we have this strength in us. Instead of trying to push it down, I think it’s important to recognise that and use it.”

formally learn this, is this right?” and I still do it every day. I just taught myself, or like you said, it’s just more intuitive. With the collections, it’s all happened organically… We had a beautiful artist, they’ve come in at the right time with the same vision of what I was envisioning of the collection and then we’ve created this beautiful collection together. Then something will pop up and I’m like, “That’s the location” and it just all comes together quite organically.

What’s your big vision? Are you allowing the business to grow organically or do you have big goals that you’re heading towards?

Definitely, absolutely, big goals. I have massive goals for Amber Days. I really want to create a label that’s able to stay true to its values, to its grassroots values, supporting our community and not having to ever compromise – and to be able to grow. To have an Aboriginal-owned label in mainstream stores – we need us in David Jones, we need us on The Iconic, we need us everywhere. I want Aboriginal children to wear the designs and feel strong within it, and then I want non-Aboriginal children to wear it and that to just be the norm. It’s just normal: you’ve got Western fashion, you’ve got your Indigenous fashion, it’s just part of the country.

Great, so you’re going big rather than staying small and artisan?

Going big with the artisan feel.

Love it. Do you have any final messages for the young people reading this? As women, we just have this strength in us and instead of trying to push it down, I think it’s important to just recognise that and use it.

I am also passionate about changing the narrative around being a parent. Reflecting on all of the strengths that it gives you, instead of talking about it as a burden. I would never be able to be as strong as I am now before I had Sapphire, so I think that’s a real strength.

My message is to just go for it. Not to feel like you’re less because you don’t have endless amounts of money to spend on starting a business. Start small, build your business, start learning. It’s important that you’re willing to learn as you go and know that you’re going to make mistakes. Creating relationships, that’s really important, and building on those relationships. I have really good relationships with my customers. I just feel so blessed that I’ve got all these beautiful people that are buying my stuff and we’re kind of creating this supportive community around us.

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