So why "Lahay"? 🤷‍♀️

So how did I come up with the name "Lahay" for my business? To answer that question, we need to go back nearly 29 years ago (4th July, 1996).

When our daughter Michaela, was 18 months old (what was I thinking 🤦‍♀️), I started the first iteration of this business without a name as a contract sewing business.

Contract sewing is where we manufactured clothing for designers- they provided patterns, fabric etc and we sewed their ranges.

Then in 1999 (to prove I am doubly crazy 🤪),  a baby boy (Hadyn was our 2nd premmie baby) was added to our family. I thought with a 4 week old baby, this would be an amazing time to start designing my own range, alongside the contract sewing business🤣.

This first range was men's and women's linen clothing and this is when "Lahay" was registered for the first time. Lahay (pronounced Lar-hay) is a combination of my children's names, Michaela & Hadyn. Well, technically, I should have named my business Lahad, but Lahay sounded so much nicer! I intentionally named the business "Lahay", not "Lahay Clothing" so if we ever decided to move into homewares or change direction in any way, we were not limited by the name. However, we are clothingbylahay on Instagram and ClothingbyLahay on You Tube because Lahay was taken!

This linen range became quite a successful wholesale business but with 2 little kids and the contract arm of the business still flourishing, I could not keep going with this range. We continued with the contract sewing for a few years until my kiddos could feed themselves and wipe their own bottoms 😉 And then Lahay as you all know it evolved into a range and brand.

Having a business named "Lahay" has its pros and cons. Pros are the name Lahay stands out. We recently received an email from a customer that purchased from us when we were based in Mullumbimby before the 2022 floods. Although our website had changed in this time, she knew it was still us because there aren't too many Lahays!

The cons are that most people pronounce it La Hay. The name is not French! Nor fancy, for that matter!

For more on our origin story, read through our About Page.

Jocelyn