Interview with Maggie McGowan, co-founder of Magpie Goose
Electrifying prints are at the heart of Northern Territory-based social enterprise Magpie Goose, whose clothes feature all manner of vivid colours. Magpie Goose began in April 2016 after founder Maggie McGowan (a former lawyer) fell in love with the work she saw in art centres, which she regularly visited during her time working in legal aid in remote Indigenous communities and Laura Egan, passionate activist and business strategy manager and also CEO and founder of Enterprise Learning Projects, a knowledge sharing space in remote Aboriginal communities. Magpie Goose uses screen-printed fabrics, textile design from art centres in the Top End. They also involve Indigenous models and photographers. Behind each collection there is a story of collaboration and empathy.
Can you tell me about how your social enterprise helps the communities and people you work with?
We create opportunities for income generation through buying fabric, licensing designs from artists, engaging models and showcasing the talent of remote communities. Magpie Goose becomes a platform that partner organisations (art centres, women's centres etc) can utilise to launch off, and we work to channel ongoing opportunities towards those we collaborate with (such as opportunities to host workshops, attend markets, speaking events, being feature artists etc).
Check out our social impact page for more.
What are the main obstacles you face with your label?
We’ve had a few challenges along the way, which have been good for us as they’ve forced us to look at what works, and make changes.
Manufacturing offshore (in Bali) in the early days was tricky, as we could not visit easily to oversee production. We made the decision to produce in Australia so we could visit the workshop, and also save on freight costs and unnecessary export and import taxes.
Keeping products affordable to our peers is another challenge – our production costs are really high, as we pay artists fairly, all designs are hand screen printed, and the cutters, makers and quality controllers we work with are all paid award wages and have good working conditions – so this all obviously costs more than making offshore! For this reason we are not able to wholesale our product very extensively (as the wholesale margin requires brands to double the cost of make, and then retail stores to double again – things would end up way too expensive!)
Navigating remoteness is also sometimes difficult, but also a great strength! People in remote communities often don't have access to internet, mobile reception, etc. So we find it’s just best to plan all meetups in person - this can be a lot more resource intensive, but ensures that everyone’s on the same page, and good relationships are developed.
Probably our biggest challenge now is making sure we continue to grow a sustainable business, so we can continue to make impact and create opportunities into the future. We need to attract the right people with expertise in fashion retail to help guide our decision making as we certainly don’t have all the answers to all the questions we’re facing!
How do you find artists / communities to collaborate with?
We are lucky to have about 16 years of working in partnership with Aboriginal people in remote communities between us, so have developed a lot of good relationships with people over the years! Our earlier collaborations were with art centres that we admired; we contacted them with a proposal outlining our ideas - to feature their screen printed textiles to create wearable art pieces - and the expected financial benefit. Our second collection was with contacts we had both made in the Katherine and Borroloola regions through our respective work. Since those earlier collections, we have had art centres and community groups reaching out - indicating a strong wish to work together! We love that collectives of Aboriginal artists can recognise the benefits of partnering with Magpie Goose. We work hard to ensure that we can be a platform for artists to enter the fashion world, and generate more opportunities.
Once a community group or art centre reaches out; we set up an initial phone or video call to further assess the aspirations of the artists; and to outline our potential offering. After hearing this, we put together a written proposal outlining the timing of a potential collaboration, the money story, and the mechanics behind bringing a collection to life. The community / artists / art centre board will then review the proposal, and then agree to opt in. We then lock in a time to come out and do a textile design workshop, or if the artists already have designs, we get cracking on getting these onto screens for printing! All up its at least a two year process - from first phone call to collection release.
What positives might come out of Covid-19?
We hope that there will be a strong turn back to Australian made, ethical, sustainable, local production. We think the economic downturn will affect big fast fashion brands, who produce cheaply and unethically in developing countries. Many have had to close stores too due to downturn in sales, and the effect of interrupted supply chains. I hope that Australians will turn to local brands; that people will buy less, but buy well. I think this global pandemic will reshape how people view globalism - while it is fabulous that we are all so connected and can buy something from anywhere in the world; when things turn sour, it is the local things that are easier to obtain, and you can see the real life impact that buying something off a local creative or shop can have!
We hope there will be a return to manufacturing locally, sourcing locally (i.e. Zips, buttons, fabric etc). Hopefully demand for all of those things means that supply increases (i.e. currently you can only get some things from offshore - maybe we will start making these locally!) Manufacturing went largely offshore in the 90s/2000s, so all the Australian manufacturers had to close up. Hopefully with a return to more local production, these guys can get started again, and this will mean more local jobs and a stronger local fashion community.
I think after being cooped up for so long, everyone will be excited to physically go out - and go shopping at real ‘brick and mortar’ retail stores. So another positive will be people supporting local retail stores.