About Us

WHO I AM

Hi! I am Stella, the founder of Gliese 504. Although I use "we" a lot, it's just me! I use the word we several times for two reasons, firstly, I want to manifest a team of people working for the business, secondly, I have some collaborators who work alongside me. 

I love fashion, I studied it and I have always worked in the industry. Unfortunately, though, it is ruining our planet and it's becoming soooo boring. I witnessed thousands and thousands of garments incinerated or destroyed during my tenure, working mostly for big international brands or retailers. In addition to that, mass production and shrinking profit margins have transformed the fashion landscape into something so flat, lacking relevance and emotional connection. 

I believe in uniqueness, quality and craft as a way to bring you something really special.

THE STORY

I started Gliese 504 in late 2017. After moving from Italy I didn't have money to buy new clothes, so I started to look at my wardrobe and the many pieces I wouldn't wear anymore. I wondered if altering some of my most loved garments would work, so I started to take sewing lessons. 

In the first year we experimented a lot by altering pre-loved clothes. Coats becoming skirts, dresses becoming tops and more. It was a completely new process with many trial and errors. However, some amazing pieces came out and we were getting compliments from everybody so we thought we start selling on Etsy. From Etsy then we moved to Shopify! 

 

Fast forward in late 2019, a great opportunity came up. The popular Melbourne based label Nique asked us for a collaboration based on the Re-Shirt Collection. After launching our own we created one for them with their unsold stock! Yes! The beginning of a dream! So we upcycled Nique's garments! And we started selling them at their Melbourne stores! I could not believe it. 

Sometimes we came up with lots and lots of new ideas and sometimes I am a bit stuck. One of the most successful was the Mega Scrunchie. I know, you would think we copied other brands (because everyone is doing oversized in everything now) or it's really very easy, but that's not the case. Hair accessories were genuinely the only way I found to recycle offcuts from the Re-Shirt Collection. The idea of the Mega came because I am always trying to design things that you can wear in several different ways. Indeed the Mega Scrunchie was originally both a scrunchie and a headband! It changed over the years, but the success has remained. 

After some time, I started experimenting again. I was looking for a cheaper way to upcycle and change the overall look of a garment. I started thinking, which would be the most important reasons why stock doesn't sell? The fitting, for sure, and then the colour. Why not try to work on changing the colour? I started with natural dyeing first. The beginning was promising, yet natural dyeing was a long, expensive process. The other problem was that it really didn't resist washes. I did my research and started with RIT dyes. Shortly after I saw that hand-dyed products were selling fast! Hand-dyeing became my focus.

I then started to apply hand-dyeing to our oversized scrunchies, and slowly I developed an entire collection of hand-dyed silk hair accessories. These are by far my most popular products and people love them! To this day, I hand-dye every single piece for you. Our hair accessories are also handmade here in Melbourne, Australia, mostly using deadstock silks. 

Hand-dyed clothing has also become the most of my offering. This also includes custom dyes. I have been exploring so many different techniques over the years, including ice dye, reverse dye, and different tying techniques too. 

Currently, you can find my work at Rose Street Artists Market on Saturdays and Sundays and limited stock at Shop Gal in Fitzroy.  I really hope you enjoy our products/ services and can/will support us. This brand would be nothing without its customers, so if I am still in the journey, it's mostly thanks to you.