THE week before COVID-19 restrictions hit Australia last year, Holly Bowden and her mother Nicola Mason had a trip booked to visit New York, London and Paris to discuss business for their respective fashion brands Epitome Hats and Smitten Merino.
Excited by the prospect of a possible collaboration with a company in Paris, their plans were turned upside down when the trip had to be cancelled.
However a lot can be said for how a person responds when the chips are down and both mother and daughter have continued to rise to the challenges of different markets and a post-COVID world.
Ever since she was 15, Ms Bowden worked in her family's Merino wool fashion business, Smitten Merino, and as their business expanded she put in the hours at their boutique at Battery Point in Hobart, Tasmania.
After completing a degree in journalism in Melbourne she transferred those skills into doing marketing and public relations for their family brand.
Also modelling for Smitten, Ms Bowden said it was when everybody kept asking where the hats she was wearing were from that the idea for her own business, Epitome Hats, formed.
With a "mad love" for hats ever since she was little and a grandmother that was a milliner in Western Australia, she remembers regularly looking through her hat box growing up.
"I'd always thought hats were such a powerful great accessory because they can completely change your whole look," Ms Bowden said.
"A great hat used to be a crucial part of your outfit - if you left the house without a hat you were missing something, so I really wanted to bring that back."
In 2013, Ms Bowden completed a millinery course in Melbourne where she learnt the process of how to make felt Fedoras and Merino wool hats, which tied in nicely with her family's business and in 2017 she founded Epitome Hats.
Ms Bowden runs the business with her husband Jaye Bowden, an avid and successful footballer who grew up about half an hour out of Hobart and moved to the city when he was 18.
With a background in finance, Mr Bowden runs the bookwork and back-end aspects of the business while Ms Bowden acts as the creator and designer.
"I didn't really have a passion for hats, fashion or anything like that growing up - it wasn't until I met Holly that we started thinking about how we could join both of our strengths to create a successful business," Mr Bowden said.
"I don't profess to contribute too much to the fashion side of things, but I have been getting better as we are starting to venture into more unisex styles for our hats."
While the brand's styles have continued to evolve since Epitome Hats' first collection, stiff wide-brimmed Fedoras have continued to be a favourite for the creator.
"When I first started there were an awful lot of short-brim Fedoras, which I didn't really see the point in because, at the end of the day, they are also meant to protect your skin and not just be a fashion item," she said.
"Hats can protect you from all of the elements and help with anti-ageing.
"Some people might assume because Tasmania can be quite cold that hats aren't necessary, but we have the biggest hole in the ozone layer down here so you can get burnt really quick.
"In that sense, I try to tell people that just because you're in a colder environment, it doesn't mean you don't still need to wear hats."
Having grown up witnessing skin cancer first-hand with her grandparents and other family members requiring skin cancers to be cut out, Ms Bowden said her exposure to the dangers of the sun had further fuelled her passion for the accessory.
Taking inspiration from old school fashion icons like Audrey Hepburn, the Epitome Hats collection includes slightly floppy wide-brim hats, mainly in neutral colours so that they go with everything as well as the stiffer and shorter-brim Fedoras to fit in with the "hipster vibe" which has made a comeback in recent years.
However rather than being trend driven, the overall style of Epitome Hats continues to be timeless, iconic and classic.
"By keeping our designs simple, people know they can pull their hat out in 10 years time and that it will still be relevant," Ms Bowden said.
Utilising 100 per cent superfine Australian Merino wool as one of their main fabrics, she said the fibre made people feel more comfortable to wear their hats in winter.
"Merino wool is the most incredible fibre in that it regulates body temperature, so it is an all year round fabric that can be worn in summer and winter," she said.
Other benefits to using Merino wool include that the hats are travel-friendly and water-proof.
"You can squash them and they come back to shape, you can wear them in the rain and they are easy to clean - so the Merino wool really does make a great selling point for our hats," Ms Bowden said.
"It comes down to the quality of the hats, having exclusivity and a product that you can confidently say is made well and will last you a long time."
Epitome Hats' bucket hats are made in Tasmania as well as the company's labelling, tags and emblems.
"Everything we can get done locally in Tasmania, we do," she said.
With Hobart's Salamanca Markets acting as a great exposure and marketing tool, Epitome Hats' sales took a big hit when their weekly stall was forced to close due to COVID-19 restrictions last year.
However, fortunate to have a good product that has some health benefits attached to it, the owners found many of their existing customers simply moved their purchases online.
"Hats are still something people like to try on, but we make sure that all of our hats are adjustable to make buying it online a bit easier," Ms Bowden said.
Today online sales account for about 50 per cent of their business and Epitome Hats continue to be stocked at a growing number of stores Australia-wide.
Having watched her family's business go from strength to strength, Ms Bowden said her parents had been incredible mentors to her and that she still loved and planned to remain part of the Smitten Merino team.
"I would go to all of the shows around Australia with dad to showcase our products and he would send me off to go and make friends with various marketing and business people," she said.
"Dad is so old school in the way he goes about things - he's classic and smart and he and mum just have a real way with people.
"Being able to watch how they work together as husband and wife as well - it's been really incredible and a real inspiration to me in my own life.
"From day dot everything they believe in has been put into the business, they've never taken the easy route and it shows, so I've truly had the best, longest internship ever.
"All of the contacts and support that they've given me has enabled me to create my own brand and they are probably why I'm where I am now."
Ms Bowden plans to launch her own small range of clothing in cotton, silks and linens which will all be ethically made in Tasmania.
"Creating something that is ethically made, makes people happy and feel good about themselves and that they know is going to protect them from the elements is a big thing for me," she said.
"I put a lot of love into what I do and am so excited about each design and style and seeing people look and feel good in one of our hats - so it really is a personal kind of business."
