Isn’t it incredible how time moves? When MAYDE was born, everything was different. We’d only been living on the Gold Coast for a short time after moving up from Sydney, I had a young baby on my hip, and those bags under my eyes still hadn’t quite formed… but that was ten whole years ago.
Fast forward and the baby is hitting high school next year, with a little brother in tow, the bags under my eyes are there but unfortunately not as cool as a Birkin, and MAYDE is now hitting a full decade in existence.
When my husband Tim and I started this business, we really were flying by the seat of our pants. We just wanted to give it a go. I was hoping to get to two years. If we got to two years and we were still going strong, then I knew we were on to a good thing. But ten years? Never in my lifetime did I think I’d be managing and overseeing my own business for this long. I guess any small business owner has moments in time where they felt the same – you really do just cross your fingers and say a silent prayer and hope for the best (but expect the worst – or at least a break-even scenario).
That’s not to say we haven’t done it tough…the valleys and troughs we’ve travelled through have been incredible. We’ve had some high highs and really low lows, but one thing has stayed true – this business is essentially our third child and so I’ve gone through the nurturing and tantrums with grace (ok, there’s been times where grace was lacking) and a ‘never say die’ attitude.
When I look back on the last ten years of MAYDE, it’s definitely with fondness…we had distributors in NZ, Korea, Japan and Europe, as well as a sales office in the US. We’ve exhibited in Australia, NY and Miami and been lucky to travel to Turkey and Portugal to visit our long-lasting suppliers. Gwyneth Paltrow was photographed with our Crescent Towel and she loved it so much she gifted all her girlfriends one of our towels at her hen’s do. We supplied towels to all the headline acts at Splendour in the Grass a few years back. We’ve collaborated with a slew of Australian and international brands. We even were able to recently collaborate with Cungelella Art to create my absolute favourite and most special towel, the Kalkadoon.
To list all the achievements here, big or small, would require a heck of a lot of paper and time, so I’ll spare you all the details. But wow, we have grown, expanded, contracted, pivoted (ah, the buzz word of 2020) and not just once but many times.
But now we do one of our biggest pivots of all – the MAYDE logo has been the one main consistent thing in our history, however this year we’re putting it to bed. Ten years ago, we were different people, our business model was different, our attitudes and expectations were different. Ten years on from those days, we are now new people. So, it was high time the appearance of our brand reflected that…from now on you’ll be seeing us around as mayde – no longer in all CAPS, shouting out to everyone who we are in a legible, practical, and somewhat simple font. We’re quietening down. We’re a bit more mature. We don’t need to scream from the high heavens about who we are. It’s just us – a lovely little towel company that cares about the products you use. She’s ten years old now, you know? Not a little kid anymore!
With that refresh comes another update – a whole new website! Don’t worry, we’re still going to be staying true to our core products of beach towels, bath towels and throws, but expect more… new towel sets, more product offerings, perhaps even some new categories to entice you a little further and make your shopping experience that much nicer.
Most of all, I really just want to say this – thank you to each and every person who’s come into our world, who’s bought one of our towels, who’s believed in our brand and where it could go. Without any of you, those two years would have been up for us a long time ago (8 years, to be precise). Yet here we are. We’re so grateful you’ve stuck around. You’re the best. If we’re still here in 10 years, I promise you another long drawn-out letter, but for now, I’m off to go pop some champers and have a lie down (but only for 10 mins, there’s still so much work to do!).
xx
Sylv.
