"From the boot of a car to a garage Andorwith is sustainable clothing in a 2019 retail reality"

• Pictures and words: Anthony Dodd

What originally began as a creative outlet for Andorwith’s co-founders, Daniel and Dominic Smith, has transpired into a clothing business with purpose that has been running for a decade.

“I [initially] came to Dominic with a very rough business plan and told him I want to start a fashion brand and this is the idea behind it,” Daniel says.

“Our first lot was sold from the back of my car at uni, opening the boot and saying ‘Hey, who wants a t-shirt?”

REMARKS

Andorwith
38 Winston Avenue
Clarence Gardens SA 5039

Fri-Sun: 10:00am ’til 5:00pm
Website and Instagram

 

The duo were raised in a family of eight children and holidayed every summer in the coastal town of Goolwa. The pair did a lot of growing up on the south coast.

“We never set out to be an actual surf brand, it just evolved,” Daniel says.

“That came about because we both surf and we’ve always been around the beach because our old man started surfing at a very young age and that has been passed on to us and all our family.”

Boards to the left and boards to the right

 

In English, the words ‘and’ ‘or’ and ‘with’ are used to connect sentences together. For Daniel and Dominic, the name Andorwith carries a deeper sentiment – it represents their family, along with their shared values of togetherness and coexistence among people from all walks of life and the environment.

Coinciding with this, some of Andorwith’s products feature short and sharp statements as a prompt for customers and the wider public to think about important social issues.

“The same time Daniel was studying architecture, I was studying Aboriginal history and arts and learning a lot about Australian history and I was really getting frustrated with the political climate at the time,” Dominic says.

“When Daniel came to me with the idea, I knew I could infiltrate some convenient messages that needed to be put out there, but in a subliminal way where people would wear a t-shirt and not realise that they were protesting, really. And that’s carried through into the surf stuff, so most ranges we release there’s always one or two that have a hidden message.”

Daniel and Dominic’s range of sustainably made boardshorts continue their altruistic mission. Each pair of boardshorts is made from eight, post-consumer plastic bottles that the brothers say would normally end up in landfill or the ocean.

These suburban entrepreneurs have an appreciation for how harmful the fashion industry can be on the environment. For Daniel and Dominic, this brand and their business is a way for them to connect their passion for surf and beach culture with a strong message and business model based on the principles of economic and ecological sustainability.

“We really need to start thinking about some of the lifelong effects of different materials and how we in fashion can create a circular industry where we make something but it can be recycled or reused,” Daniel says.

“Some of our t-shirts are made from organic cotton, so that’s another way, and eventually we’d like all of our t-shirts to be made from that. We’re always trying to better our practice.”

The Smiths’ shack-like shopfront sits inside the revamped garage at Daniel’s home in Clarence Gardens – an echo of the business’ beginnings selling t-shirts from the boot of a car.

The space embraces the modern minimalistic style trend with minimal furniture, clean lines, and colour coordinated finishes that give a beachside aesthetic and ambiance.  To us, the Andorwith concept store in Clarence Gardens has an atmosphere reminiscent of the 1990s cult film Wayne’s World, but in place of a TV studio, we have a grassroots fashion store.

 

“We wanted it plain inside so that the colours of our clothing would really stand out, hence the natural materials of the plywood and the white walls,” Daniel says.

“During Spring and Summer, we extend the shop into the garden and have surf boards out on the outer wall and have a couple of racks on the artificial grass and really encourage people to [embrace] that there’s literally a surf shop in a backyard.”

You’ll find the brothers’ locally printed threads as well as surfboards and other accessories whenever the garage door is up at their homely Winston Avenue store. Drop by and have a gander, support ethical and shop local.

And if you can’t find Clarence Gardens on Google Maps, Andorwith’s full range is available online.

Tomorrow is ANZAC day, a day that always bares mixed feelings for all Australians and New Zealanders, non-Indigenous and Indigenous peoples alike. Although ANZAC day is becoming increasingly commercialised and used to foster profit, nonetheless it is a period of Australian, New Zealander and world history that deserves to be marked and remembered, in the right and respectful way.

An issue that does need attention, however, is the fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Maori and Immigrants are often forgotten or overlooked as ANZAC soldiers who also fought in this battle, this war and our previous and subsequent wars. They fought side by side but importantly to note, on a number of occasions they were often the first line of defence and/or offence. We are not here, however, to rank the importance of who fought and when, we are merely here to bring awareness and recognition to ALL of those who fought.

Unfortunately Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Maori peoples and Immigrants often get forgotten on this day for their involvement and their sacrifice, so from now on, remember that they too fought for their respected countries, they too lost family members and they too wish to commemorate their beloved ANZACs, just the same. So at tomorrow's dawn service or wherever and whenever you find yourself taking a minute to reflect, please make sure to reflect on all those who fought including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Maori and Immigrants too. Lest We Forget.

The ball tampering ‘scandal’ has, for the most part, come and gone. It did last for a few weeks in the media though, which is a pretty decent time for mainstream media to hold onto the one story for. I’d love to see them report other stories for the same amount of time and effort they did the sandpapering, but that’s kind of another story for another day. In the end the way they carried on about the ‘tampering’, for what was nothing more than a simple sporting play misconduct, was outrageous. There is no way I am condoning what they did as wrong, but I am saying it was taken way too seriously, sensationalised and as a result given way too much air time. But this is pretty typical for the media. Even the unbiased ABC had a good hot go too. Luckily SBS was able to shed light on other, more important, news.

Unfortunately this type of ‘news’ sells space and timeslots, because the everyday Joe, eats it up. But whose fault is it, ours for eating it all up, or theirs for serving it up in the first place. Based on my experience analysing and critique the media and its effects on society for over 5 years, I’d say it is 99.9% the media’s fault.  There is so much news worthy stories going on each and every day around the world but it is up to each media outlet to choose exactly what they report on, when and for how long. These days we barley have to open our eyes and we are bombarded by ‘news’. It’s on Facebook, Instagram, our favourite websites, in shopping malls, on tvs on the train, bus and trams. We can barely escape it. Surely then, if we are seeing so much news hourly, then they have time to feed us other news throughout the day. Unfortunately, no matter how much news you watch or read, they send the same stories down your throat time and time again. Man kills women, women kills man, petrol station robbed, cat in tree, burst main causes flood, idol sandpapers ball, today was hot. Far out. But we eat it.

They do it because they know we will eat up every last mouth full each and every time, we don’t even know what else could be consumed in the world unless we go looking for it. Which is exactly what the powers at be want. They want us to be consumed by the bullshit. They want us consuming on the pointless, the funny, the mundane, and the sporting scandals. This enables a society of which they can control. They can manipulate what you think, when, where and why. They can manipulate how and what you think about certain topics. All to suit their own agendas and monetary gains.

It seems bleak but this is just the reality of exactly what is going on. They feed you with the idea of it being your choice but if they don’t feed you any other side to a story, they are just feeding you the same thing over and over, giving you no other choice but to believe it and move on.

Fuck that, don’t consume the bullshit. Actually make it your choice by getting your news from a variety of sources and outlets. Maybe try SBS, ABC, The Guardian and one or two mainstream outlets. You’ll be shocked at the difference, at the quality of journalism and at the variety in stories. You’ll become way more informed and way more interested in the rest of the world. Ideally, enabling you to make your own informed decisions and opinions. Ball tampering is sports news, but it isn’t worthy enough to be the only news story for the night let alone for the week. Don’t let them win, change your perspectives by opening them.

Before I begin I must thank all the women who started this movement and for the resurgence we are seeing today and thank all the women who have come before me to speak about their own sexual assault, sexual harassment or sexism in general. If it wasn't for these women I wouldn't be able to come forward and speak about the issues at hand so freely. So I thank you.

As a man I believe it is up to me, up to all of us men to start a movement of change within our gender and our sex. A change that sees sexism, sexual harassment and sexual assault, subtle or overt, direct or indirect, called out for what it is. It is up to men like me, innocent or not, to be a voice of change, a voice to go alongside the millions of brave women already doing just that. We need to help call out unwanted off the cuff sexist remarks, sexual behaviour and sexual innuendo for what they are, crude, rude and disrespectful. It starts within the home, the workplace, the sporting clubs and in our social circles. We need to turn the ‘boys club’ on its head, and begin creating a new normal and new way of speaking, acting and treating women. A normal that is centred on respect, and being proud of the women in our lives, that we should love, respect and cherish. If you respect your sister, or your mother or your grandmother there should be no way you can bring harm upon another woman.

Changing your perspectives in today's multifaceted society is becoming increasingly more important as each day goes on. The old views and opinions of yesteryear need to be challenged, refocused and updated. This is something we at Andorwith are constantly doing, each and everyday. We are constantly learning new things and ways of seeing the world. We are also relearning old ideas through new perspectives. This has given us the understanding that somethings aren't always the way they seem at first glance or at face value. There are so many sayings that support this view, 'Don't judge a book by its cover', 'Walk a mile in my shoes' just to name a couple for example. It’s about learning something new or relearning something you thought you already understood through another person’s or cultures perspective.

This idea was the grounding for one of our latest more deeper t-shirt based designs, 'Change Your Perspectives' (seen below). The upside down globe is to represent the idea of looking at the world differently by changing your perspectives. Maybe we have been looking at the world the wrong way this whole time? Who knows.

We are always updating our designs just like we are always updating the way we look at the world and indeed our own perspectives. If you haven't checked in with yours in a while, give it a go. Relearn about something that interests you through another author, a new doco or from someone you know that has a different opinion to yours. You may learn something new and hopefully you learn a new way of looking at the world. If we learn something once, and never return to it or never question it, we become stuck, ignorant and our perspectives become concrete interpretations. Change your perspectives on the world by listening to others; turn your ideas, your perspectives, and your world upside down.