By Rhiannon Duke, Founder of Duke The Label
When I started Duke The Label, or more commonly known as DTL, I was 19, and it was because I wanted to make friends. I’d just moved to the other side of the city, finished high school, and didn’t have a car to travel back and see the friends I’d grown up with. I was shy, socially awkward, and had absolutely no idea how you were supposed to make new friends as an adult.
The inspiration for DTL
At that time, I was getting really into fitness and had joined a local gym. There were women in their late twenties and early thirties who were the epitome of confident and beautiful. I wanted to know them. I just didn’t know how to walk up and make that happen.
I overheard their conversations about sports bras being uncomfortable, not fitting properly, products they wished existed, and thought maybe I could make something for them. Looking back, I felt like I needed to provide value to have a reason to connect with them. So I bought a secondhand sewing machine, fabric, and started designing.
Around the same time, I decided to start free workout classes in my local park. I posted in our suburb Facebook group, bought equipment, and somehow had 10-13 women coming every Saturday for around three months while I ran workouts. I have no idea where 19 year old me found the confidence. But when I look back, I think I was chasing connection with women in every way I knew how.
One of the women regularly coming to those workouts was in her sixties. I’d talk to her about the activewear I was designing and she told me to turn it into a business. I didn’t have female guidance around me at that age and having an older woman listen to my ideas, take them seriously, and tell me I could do something with them meant more than she probably realised.
So I did it. It took around 18 months to get my first bulk production made, which meant I was 20 by the time DTL launched. There was no business plan, I knew nothing about fashion, manufacturing, or building a company. But I learned and have continued to learn.
Instagram – @dukethelabel
Eight years later
Every garment DTL has ever made exists because it solves a problem. That’s the entire filter. If I can’t explain why something needs to exist, we don’t make it – and if it isn’t right, it doesn’t launch.
It’s why, in eight years, we’ve released fewer than 10 products. In fashion, that’s almost unheard of. There’s no designer working to KPIs, no launch calendar demanding a certain number of styles to hit a revenue forecast – a deadline never decides when a product is finished. I’ve been told this isn’t the “right” way to run a fashion business. But it’s the only way I know how to make something worth wearing.
Our newest sports bra is the most extreme example of that. It’s been in development for more than two years, and we’ve worked around nine different fit models trying to perfect it. We design across our full size range, XS to 4XCurve, so what fits one body doesn’t automatically fit the next – nine fit models wasn’t optional if we wanted this to actually work for the women wearing it. Recently, I travelled to China to work directly with our manufacturers because we’d reached a point where there were parts of construction I couldn’t communicate properly from Australia. At one stage I was sitting inside the factory with scissors, cutting apart multiple bras and piecing different sections together to physically show them what I could see in my head.
From side hustle to full-time
What’s crazy to me is that until December 2025, I was still working a full-time job alongside building DTL. There was a point in 2023 where I nearly closed the business completely; I was exhausted, and walking away felt easier than continuing. With the support and encouragement of my partner Dan, I kept going. I was never building DTL with an exit in mind – I wanted to build, and am building, a company I’m proud to own.
I don’t want to release four collections a year because that’s what a fashion calendar tells me to do. I don’t want to create something purely because a spreadsheet says we need more revenue.
I want to hear from the women who wear two sports bras just to exercise and ask – why are we accepting that as normal? I want to hear about the digging, bouncing, rolling, adjusting, and discomfort women have been told to put up with and see if we can make something better.
Bigger not louder
I started DTL because I was a shy 19-year-old looking for connection with other women and today the business is bigger than I ever could have imagined. We’re now building the infrastructure for our next stage of growth, including expanding further into the United States.
But weirdly, my job hasn’t changed that much since the start. I still listen to women; I still become completely obsessed with their problems and finding the solution.
We’re not the loudest brand in the room, and I don’t think I ever want us to be. We’re just quietly doing our own thing, in our own lane, and building something we’re incredibly proud of.
