Editor’s Note: As founder (and namesake) of BUTTONS by Sarah Claire, Sarah’s career hasn’t exactly been straight forward. She came close to starting her own fashion line years ago, but lost faith and decided to return to education, ending up on an entirely different path. Now, finally, she has returned to her first love of fashion, and found that the break has worked in her favour – it’s true that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Sarah tells Woman.com.au how her experience has made her better than before.

For the first few years of my working life I was lucky to work in Australia’s popular fashion boutiques. I started working in a beautiful Australian designer boutique in Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast. I learnt a lot from viewing the process of manufacturing right through to sales.

At this time in my life, I thought I would create my label and I was very close to pouring my heart and soul into the production of it – I taught myself how to sew and would create everything I wore and was even asked to stock my designs in a boutique I was working in at the time. But the nerves and the ‘what ifs’ clouded my judgment and I thought that I ‘should’ study first to build something I could fall back on if my ‘what ifs’ were to happen.

I need everything organised and actually do find the fun side of it – so I enrolled to study Event Management. Once I completed my studies I started working in the events industry and fell in love with weddings. All the prettiness and joy of organising weddings became second nature to me. I worked extremely hard and became the wedding manager at a lovely hotel on the Gold Coast.

During this time my partner, who works in the construction industry, was offered work in regional Australia. We decided to move and this is where I fell back into my element: I started drawing and creating fashion again. It was a wonderful feeling to get my mind back to designing. For some reason, I felt so different with my approach to design. It was like everything I had learnt over the years had fallen into place and allowed me to find a deeper beauty in fabric, style, colour and design.

After a period of time, extremely hard work and great passion, my BUTTONS by Sarah Claire label was built. We are now approaching the launch of a second season and are rapidly growing into a promising and reputable woman’s fashion label.

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