News / Business
Indigenous clothing brand takes its message to heart of Sydney Road
Fashion comes second to advocacy at Clothing The Gaps

Mark Phillips
‘MERCH with a message’ is how co-founders Laura Thompson and Sarah Sheridan describe their Sydney Road retail business, Clothing The Gaps.
When they started the company six years ago, the duo had no intention of founding a nationally-known fashion brand. Their plan was simply to have a range of merchandise to supplement an Indigenous health promotion organisation.
But after recently relocating their store from the block between Albion Street and Moreland Road, they are now fully ensconced in the heart of Brunswick’s fashion district on the ground floor of the Hardwick Building.
While they may now find themselves rubbing shoulders with high couture dressmakers and other designers, the message still comes first for Clothing The Gaps which in a few short years has been at the forefront of advocacy for First Nations health and social justice issues.
“We’re a community advocacy brand, merch with a message,” said Sheridan, a non-Indigenous woman who is the company’s deputy CEO and operations manager.
“It’s not fashion first, it’s messaging first and activation. Merch with a message is a conversation starter which can be paired with resources and campaign materials so people who wear the tees [t-shirts], especially non-Aboriginal people, can educate themselves about what that message means to be able to then continue to have those conversations out in the world to see social change.”
Clothing The Gaps opened its first retail outlet at 744 Sydney Road in 2020 to stock a small range of clothes, accessories and other items.
From day one, the Brunswick area has been the business’ largest market both for in-store and online sales. But while the store has been successful and they wanted to remain in Brunswick, they had long coveted a more central position on Sydney Road.
The new shop is smaller but it has greater visibility and profile and its proximity to Sparta Place will allow Clothing The Gaps to run outdoor events and activities. It will also place the store at the heart of this year’s Sydney Road Street Party.
The new store opened on January 16 and the old space has been sub-let to an Epilepsy Foundation op shop.
“We had kept an eye out for what a smaller space might look like for us, and this space came onto the market,” said Thompson.
“And it was funny because before it was even available for lease, I said this would be the perfect spot for us … we’ve only been open for a week, and we’ve already had people discover us who hadn’t bought from us before.”
Thompson and Sheridan have known each other for a decade since the former was the latter’s manager when she began working at the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service while still a university student.
They bonded and in 2018 branched out with a not-for-profit Aboriginal health promotion company called Spark Health. When the Covid pandemic brought those activities to a standstill, they rebranded as Clothing The Gap (the name is a play on the phrase “closing the gap”) and expanded their merchandise range.
Legal action by American clothing retail chain Gap forced them to change their name to its current form in 2021. Meanwhile, the business had been thrust into the public eye by its ‘Free The Flag’ campaign to allow use of the iconic tricolour Aboriginal banner designed by Harold Thomas to be used without any copyright restrictions.
Thompson – a Gunditjmara woman who is the company’s CEO – had launched the campaign after being blocked in 2019 from using the iconic image on its range of merchandise.
“This was also the time of the Black Lives Matter movement, and lots of people bought our ‘Always Was, Always Will Be’ tee [T-shirt] or ‘Free The Flag’ tee from us, and that really gave us the idea of the power of a tee to create social movements and change,” she said.
“And from there, we’ve just been using fashion to advocate, but it was never the intention to start a fashion brand.”

Momentum for the Morrison government to act grew after a petition with 140,000 signatures was tabled in Parliament. The third anniversary of that campaign win will be celebrated this Saturday.
The following day, January 26, is the focus of Clothing The Gaps current campaign, ‘Not A Date to Celebrate’.
The campaign aims to get Australians talking about the unhappy history for First Nations people since that day when Captain Arthur Phillip established the first European colony at Botany Bay in 1788.
Thompson and Sheridan stress they are not talking about changing the date of Australia Day – that is another big conversation – but about recognition that for Indigenous Australians, January 26 is a day of mourning and also of resilience.
T-shirts and other clothing items carry the message ‘Not A Date to Celebrate’, encouraging people to sign a new petition which currently has 25,000 names.
While the message has been around for several years, the petition was launched on the anniversary of the failed Voice to Parliament referendum on October 14 last year.
“We launched the petition on that day just to try and harness that community support from the people that did vote Yes and really start to get some change around that,” Thompson said.
“It feels like it’s a tougher time, but I think that’s why the petition’s really important to sort of show those power in numbers of people who actually support this change as well.
“We’re keen to keep raising the profile of community voices around why Jan 26 isn’t the right date for a national celebration. The call to action of the petition has given it more legs.
“Our main view is it’s not a date to celebrate, but it’s also not a date to ignore. I think when people treat it as business as usual, they’re not acknowledging that it’s a day of mourning and the truth behind it. So I think there’s a balance of recognising the pain and trauma associated with Jan 26, no matter what.”
Sheridan, who speaks as a non-Indigenous person, said the defeat of the referendum had emboldened those opposed to reconciliation and self-determination. She said Clothing The Gaps had a role to play in pushing back against those views.
“With the rise of conservative politics and post the Voice referendum, it’s even more important than ever for people to be really clear about their values in the world because I think we can perhaps become a bit complacent.
“I would also hope that the date would have changed by now but we are so far from that at the moment unfortunately. It’s very easy to live in an incredible, socially progressive bubble that Brunswick is but we have to remember and we need Brunswickians to remember that we have to keep using our voices because unfortunately this isn’t what the rest of the country looks like.”
Today, Clothing The Gaps has a core workforce of 15 full-time and part-time staff and prides itself on being Indigenous led and a safe space for First Nations people.
Both Thompson and Sheridan take heart from the fact that their clothes are worn by people of all ages and backgrounds.
“Early on we called ourselves a streetwear label, which is so funny because we’re not streetwear, we’re not cool enough,” said Thompson. “At the end of the day, I want all ages and all people to feel comfortable in the clothes. It’s less about the demographic and more about the people and carrying the message.”
Sheridan said social media influencers had worn their clothes, but so had “my friend’s 78-year-old dad”.
“I think that’s the power of clothing to unite people and to get to cross those social borders.”
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