Three sisters, one Gold Coast garden, and a campaign we barely had to direct.
We have created many campaigns over the years, but this one felt different from the beginning. There is something special about being with people who knew you before the world did. With Ashton, Cori and Vanessa Wood, that connection was already there. We simply gave it room.
We were in a garden on the Gold Coast. Nobody had to be told how to stand together or when to laugh. They talked over each other, fixed each other’s hair without being asked and fell straight back into the familiar rhythm they have shared since childhood. Our job was mostly to stay out of the way and keep shooting.
The feeling of being together
When I think about Christmas, I think less about how it looks and more about how it feels.
The noise in the kitchen before lunch. Somebody still in a slip at eleven in the morning because there is nowhere to be. The comfort of being with people who have known you through so many seasons of your life.
Ashton, Cori and Vanessa have each built full lives of their own. But for this campaign, what mattered most was the connection they share as sisters.
As we grow, our lives take us in different directions. Yet being together can bring us back to something simple. A familiar laugh. A shared memory. The feeling of being understood without having to explain. That is what we wanted Heirloom to celebrate.
The Gold Coast part matters
The Wood sisters grew up here, on the Gold Coast. So did Homebodii.
I started this label in 2012 on our farm at Gilston. I was twenty nine, with a toddler on my hip and no particular plan beyond making something beautiful for brides. Everything that has happened since, from the boutique at Pacific Fair to the stockists overseas and the brides all over the world, started about twenty minutes from where these photographs were taken.
That shared beginning gave the day another layer of meaning. We had all travelled different paths, yet here we were, creating something together in the place we call home.
Before any of it, they were three sisters on this coast.
Same three sisters. Same coast. More than twenty Christmases later.
Looking towards fifteen years of Homebodii
Next year Homebodii turns fifteen. As that milestone approaches, I find myself thinking about the women and families who have made this label part of their lives.
We have dressed women for their wedding mornings and, years later, for their sisters’ wedding mornings. Bridesmaids have returned as brides. Being part of those chapters is something I never take for granted.
That is the feeling behind Heirloom. Pieces chosen with love, worn for meaningful moments and kept for the memories they hold. Something worn one Christmas, then another, and perhaps one day passed to someone else in the family.
The moments we carry with us
The moments we treasure are not always the ones we plan. Sometimes they are the slow morning before everyone arrives, or the conversation that carries on long after lunch. What makes them meaningful is who we share them with.
We make sleepwear for those moments. Pieces to feel at home in, surrounded by the people who make you feel at home in yourself.
More to come.
With fifteen years approaching, there is so much more to share.
Ingrid Bonnor, Founder, Homebodii. Gold Coast, Australia.