Horsham’s Greg McKinnon and brothers Hayden and Kial Jarred, originally from Nhill, kicked off their own clothing brand 18 months ago. 

Rappore Lifestyle is starting to find its groove after some months of hard work to get the business off the ground. The company makes hoodies, beanies, tall tees and long sleeves. 

Although the clothes might resemble big city street culture, Mr McKinnon said the values behind the brand are quite different. 

“It’s the definition of the word rapport – to have a harmonious relationship with people or groups,” he said.

“We really wanted to have a positive vibe to the whole brand to emphasis the idea of positivity. It’s opposed to that sex, drugs and rock and roll vibe stereotype of street culture.”

The brand has a distinctive logo with Chinese characters down the spine on the back. 

“All the logos and designs we came up with ourselves through a process of elimination,” Mr McKinnon said.

“On the back of the hoodies it says ‘lifestyle’ in Chinese, and that’s inspired by the relationships Hayden and Kial had with people of other cultures in their time in Melbourne.

“It’s not just something random that looks cool, there is meaning behind it.”

Hayden Jarred originally had the idea for the brand after studying a Bachelor of Business at RMIT.

“I wanted to do something practical that I really cared about,” he said.

“We had the idea and showed our friends to see what they liked. We wanted to create a diverse brand.

“We use social media to talk about some things and promote the ideas. We want to really get the message across that there is meaning behind the brand.”

Mr Jarred said there were plenty of challenges when setting up the business.  

“This is the first time I’ve physically run a business,” he said.

“It’s crazy difficult setting a business up. There’s always another hurdle. I pretty much did it all myself and figured it all out with planning.

“It was the start of this year. We had some designs down and picked the clothes we like and then we thought we should go for it.”

The business is based online at rapporelifestyle.com and the founders also ran a pop-up store on Firebrace Street in Horsham last week. 

“The pop-up store won’t be a weekly or monthly thing but we would like to do a pop-up store for each season’s line, before it gets released online,” Hayden said.

“We are using the money now to really help set up the business and get some momentum.”

Mr McKinnon said he hoped there would be chances to grow the business in the future. 

“We have our sights set on not just clothes but also media production and entertainment,” he said. 

“We want to get it to the point where we could do some cool things, which could include sponsorship and donations too.”