Family Values

As a deal with an equity giant supercharges their expansion plans, Ginger & Smart founders Genevieve and Alexandra Smart talk to Rachelle Unreich about parental influence, the brand DNA and the enduring magic of storytelling.

- Rachelle Unreich

When Alexandra and Genevieve Smart were growing up, it wasn’t obvious the sisters would wind up together in fashion, as the duo behind the Ginger & Smart label. Theirs was a bookish family — their parents were in publishing — and Genevieve remembers scanning the shelves of the family home with the scent of books in the air. But there was one clue: their mother collected hundreds of thrifted silk blouses “and would drag us to vintage stores and second-hand shops,” she says. “[Mum] would make us touch velvet to show how sensual it feels. Other kids were wearing ’80s polyester dresses and we wouldn’t be loving it at the time, but now I appreciate that introduction to how cashmere feels and how silk breathes. Then we’d get back home and take [garments] apart or customise or dye them. There was a lot of getting inventive.”

The siblings haven’t put their literary roots completely behind them. “Our collections always have a story to tell,” says Genevieve, who likens the layers of a collection to the unfolding of a novel’s plot. “We tell a story through the woman who’s wearing our clothes; whispering stories to our customer is part of what we do.”