aussieBum

aussieBum is an Australian men's swimwear manufacturer. In recent years aussieBum has also increased its product line to include underwear and clothing. The company is seen as having a large following among fashion-influential metrosexual and gay consumers.

In 2001, director Sean Ashby started aussieBum when he couldn’t find the style of swimwear he grew up with. The company had an inauspicious launch in the middle of the dot-com bust, and at the time the original website ran from a suburban lounge room, created by Ashby with bootleg web software. Joined by co-director Guyon Holland, they created a new market by bringing back the classic speedo-style Aussie cossie and introducing digital prints and other vibrant designs. Since starting out with only AU$20,000, aussieBum is now a multi-million dollar global enterprise, employing over 30 people, manufacturing over 150 different styles of products.

All aussieBum products are manufactured in Australia with the business run completely out of the company's headquarters in the Sydney suburb of Leichhardt. The brand is sold in some of the biggest department stores in the world such as Selfridges and Harvey Nichols in London, Printemps in France and KaDeWe in Germany, and is distributed to more than 70 countries via their online e-store.

The company is known for its highly creative products, such as Essence underwear; which contains vitamins locked in the fibre which releases through the skin, and the Wonderjock; underwear designed to enhance the appearance of men's assets, causing quite a stir from news broadcasters around the world.

The company has no sales representatives overseas but relies on the strength of the company website. Australian sales make up only 10% of its business, and is on its way to AU$20 million in annual sales.

Advertising
Shearing the Rams

aussieBum promote their products in non-traditional venues on the internet, such as blogs, the social networking site MySpace and the online game Second Life. Cultivating the image of a larrikin Australian has also helped the company in getting noticed in overseas markets where Australian culture is still a novelty.

Celebrities including Ewan McGregor, Billy Connolly, and Daniel Radcliffe are fans of the cossies while Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue featured buff men wearing aussieBums in the video clip for Slow. Soccer superstar and men's fashion trendsetter David Beckham has also appeared in the brand.

Advertising continues with the brand's distinct cheeky style in campaigns such as Shearing the Rams, which repainted a 100-year old iconic Australian painting with muscle-bound blokes shearing sheep in just their undies.

The Wonderjock

In November 2006 the Wonderjock was launched in the aussieBum underwear lines. Wonderjocks have been designed to lift and enhance a man's assets, through the use of a fabric cup used to protrude things out instead of just down. 50,000 pairs of the new underwear were sold in the first seven days of being released. The name was chosen as a pun on the popular Wonderbra line of push-up bras.

In May 2007 the company also introduced Wonderjock technology into their swimwear line. Currently in the Classic and Storm varieties, a fabric pouch is used to enhance a man's package, particularly when getting out of cold water. (Credit: Wikipedia).

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Bums rush - 20th October 2005
(Credit: The Age)

Australian fashion designer Sean Ashby has come a long way in the four years since using his life savings to set up men's swimwear and clothing business - aussieBum.

The company has doubled in size each year since then and this past financial year earned more than $5 million in sales and carries no debt.

"The business has grown five or six times in terms of volume, but also awareness," Ashby, 37, said.

Ashby, himself a keen surfer and swimmer, worked in the entertainment industry before thinking up the idea of aussieBum when he found it hard to find a good pair of men's cossies.

So he used his $20,000 in savings to make a series of prototypes and buy materials, and began approaching local Australian retailers.

"The swimwear I wanted was not available so I took a bit of faith and just did it," he said.

"I had some savings for a house so I used that money to invest in getting all of the range created."

But Ashby found local retailers did not see any potential in the product.

So he took the rejections on the chin and instead launched an internet retailing business and began approaching department stores in Europe and the United States.

"It was more about proving (wrong) some people locally that said our product wasn't relevant," Ashby said.

"They just didn't see the value of an Australian brand competing against international brands. Today the tables are turned and that has been the biggest motivation."

AussieBum is manufactured in Australia with the business run completely out of the company's headquarters in the Sydney suburb of Leichhardt.

The brand is now sold in some of the biggest department stores in the world and is distributed to more than countries via internet sales.

The line is the fourth biggest brand in British department store Selfridges, and was recently given its own concepts space there.

It is also sold exclusively alongside brands such as Calvin Klein at German department store KaDeWe.

And celebrities including Ewan McGregor and Billy Connolly are fans of the cossies while Aussie pop singer Kylie Minogue featured buff men wearing aussieBum cossies in the video clip for her song Slow.

Soccer darling and men's fashion trendsetter David Beckham has also been spotted in the brand.

"It has taken on its own little cult revolution," Ashby said of aussieBum.

"Internationally, you have got Ewan McGregor ordering our gear and Kylie Minogue and all of those people."

The aussieBum range has since been extended to include underwear, singlet tops, t-shirts and boardshorts - a move which offers a promising future for the brand.

And now, the brand's biggest competitors are international fashion houses such as Dolce and Gabbana, Ralph Lauren and Diesel.

"We now have people coming out from Italy, looking at what we are doing and actually identifying our trends," said Ashby, who ships around 10,000 units a week from his Sydney office.

"You would think swimwear is very big internationally, but it isn't and there aren't many companies that specialise just in men's swimwear."

The brand's success had been likened to other successful Aussie labels such as Sass and Bide.

"The only difference is that while they became successful in other countries, we became successful literally overnight in over 70 countries," Ashby said.

Ashby consciously and unashamedly marketed his gear to the often fashion conscious and high disposable income gay community, which prompted an interest in the more mainstream market.

"I tackled the hardest market that everyone is very envious of and would love to be able to market to," he said.

"We tackle the trendsetter market and the gay market is a trend setter. They identify new ideas and new styles a lot faster and accept them a lot faster."

Ashby is all smiles, very happy with himself for proving his critics wrong. But he admits the brand may not be for everyone.

"We know that not everyone can wear it and if you wear it, you have got to have confidence," Ashby said.

"It is a body thing, nothing else."

He said part of the label's attraction was that aussieBum wasn't readily available in shops.

But the other attraction was that it was 100 per cent Australian.

"A lot of big brands are now made out of China and Australia is seen as a real hot property in terms of design and fashion," Ashby said.

Ashby said manufacturing locally meant costs were around five times as high as if he were to move offshore.

"(But) what we have here is quality products," he said.

- AAP