Danielle Mulham’s resort wear label, Posse, began with the idea of irreplaceability. She loves vintage, particularly the kind of pieces that occupy a place in your wardrobe forever. So when she was putting her range together, she found herself drawing on the classics.
“There were ‘forever elements’ I wanted to pull from different [vintage] pieces, such as an incredible puff sleeve detail. I’m also drawn to unique prints, but then the style and cut of the dress wouldn’t be right,” she says. “So I would take these elements and adapt [them] to create my own modern day version of the garment.
Posse’s new collection, L’Essentials, is a curation of the best-selling styles over the last few years. They’re building blocks for a well-rounded summer wardrobe, with designs imbued with a hint of nostalgia.
“A lot of the garments are one size fits all – they’re effortless pieces that you can pop on at any stage of the year,” she says. “They’re very trans-seasonal and about 90 per cent of our garments are linen.”
Top sellers include the hand-dyed linen Micky bandeau, a tight-fitting crop top with a tie front, available in black, white and rose. The crisp, breezy Lula shirt is an oversized, relaxed-fit button-down style made with a linen and cotton blend. It has an exaggerated longline back and comes in black and white.
Mulham studied styling and creative direction at Melbourne’s Whitehouse Institute of Design and says working in fashion retail gave her invaluable insight into what women were shopping for: “Easy to wear, effortless, timeless pieces that were feminine and sexy”.
She designed and released her first range in 2016. “I was the wrapper, packer, designer, customer service assistant,” she recalls. “I was hand-writing every single note to all of our customers.”
Today Mulham designs every garment in Sydney, and artisans in India and Bali construct the clothing. Like many young Australian fashion labels, Posse is dedicated to ethical manufacturing processes and seeks to be as sustainable as possible.
“We’re lucky because we work with 90 per cent natural fibres – natural linen and cotton – so they’re obviously going to eventually break down,” Mulham says. She also recently switched to recyclable packaging.
Alongside ready-to-wear offerings, Mulham has added a range of accessories including vintage-style scrunchies, sunglasses, chain-style costume jewellery and raffia pool slides.
While Posse is predominantly a resort wear label, Mulham says it will venture into designing smaller winter collection in the future, and in 2020 another capsule collection is due for release. “And we’ve got some exciting collaborations coming up,” she says.
Stephanie Vigilante 
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