Aje

Aje began in Noosa, the Queensland resort town north of Brisbane. Adrian Norris had returned to Australia after studying art in Venice, at the Liceo Artistico, and was running a multi-brand boutique there called Strada. In 2005 he met Edwina Forest, then a stylist at the Sydney fashion magazine Russh, in Brisbane; within a week, she later recalled, he had asked her to help out in the shop. Spending their days with the town's well-heeled holidaymakers, the pair noticed what was missing from the racks: clothes that could go from the beach to a beautiful dinner without looking like either disco wear or a kaftan.

In 2008 they launched Aje to fill that gap, making elevated pieces in humble fabrics, often cotton and linen, some of it hand-loomed in India. When the global financial crisis emptied Noosa of tourists, the business moved to Sydney, and in 2010 they opened the first Aje store, a small shop in Potts Point. The brand built its following on what its founders call "tough femininity": sculptural volume set against structure, raw edges, hand-painted prints and a balance of statement pieces and everyday essentials.

Art has been a constant. Norris continued to paint, and the label has reproduced works by Australian artists with the cooperation of estates and galleries, including the brushwork of the Aboriginal artist Minnie Pwerle and, for resort 2019, Brett Whiteley's 1963 painting Woman in Bath, colour-matched against the original at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Aje has been a regular presence at Australian Fashion Week.

Unusually for a young label, Aje grew mostly through its own stores rather than wholesale. By the brand's tenth anniversary in 2018 it employed about 80 people, and by 2023 it had more than twenty stores across Australia and New Zealand and was stocked by department stores including Harrods, Selfridges, Galeries Lafayette, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom. In 2021 it launched Aje Athletica, a premium activewear line, and Norris later launched Ikkari, a wellness and beauty brand. The three now sit within The Aje Collective, with Norris as group chief executive and Forest as creative director-at-large for Aje and Aje Athletica.

Nearly two decades after a beach-town boutique, Aje remains founder-owned and independent, one of the clearest examples of a contemporary Australian label built on the country's coastal-to-city way of dressing.