Where it all began
Spending her twenties on building sites, farms and long-haul ships, brand founder and creative director Mimosa Schmidt knows what it means to get her hands dirty. Often working in hyper masculine spaces, at times being the only woman on site, during these formative years she also learnt what it means to be watched on the job. Her femininity, in the context of hard labour, was still wrongly seen to imply weakness, incompetence, and inexperience.
Dressed in standard-issue, ill fitting workwear, she felt overlooked from the get go. A feeling that was exacerbated by the harassment and isolation she endured, for which gender seemed to be the only catalyst. Slogging it out in sagging overalls and baggy workshirts, she started to dream up designs that would empower those who have to work doubly hard to earn the respect most others are given freely.
Enter SÜK Workwear. The culmination of years of research and inspired design prototypes, SÜK is built on the ethos of celebrating all workers as worthy. Function, sexuality, fluidity, integrity and fierceness combine in these garments, whose design champions feminine expression, rather than attempting to dismiss and disguise under the usual workwear norm.
SÜK invites all bodies to have the confidence to be their most creative selves, the versatility to endure any task, and the freedom to look hot while doing it. A tongue-in-cheek homonym, SÜK is a wink to all the men on site who thought ‘the girls’ were subpar, an outright gift to all identities who’s power has, until now, been dismissed.