By Jed Lanyon
An independent children’s clothing business in Warburton has launched a new line of sustainable clothing made from recycled plastic bottles.
Edo and Shlomit Moria started Deezo in 2009 with the aim of spreading positivity and bringing a new take to kids clothing. Mr Moria speaks of his inspiration for Deezo after having trouble finding a variety of clothing for his own children.
“Back at the time we couldn’t get anything colourful for them,” he said. “Everything was black or navy for boys and pink and red for girls, so we wanted to break that.”
And so, Deezo was born, formed from the names of the Moria children Dean and Zoe.
“We decided that everything was going to be positive with happy motives,” Mr Moria said. “You’re not going to find anything with skulls or anything like that.
“I was already in fashion as a wholesaler. We started in 2009 and it was the great recession, so as a wholesaler I lost most of my shops that I was selling to. Back at the time, my wife was a graphic designer and she was pretty fed up with working in front of the screen… So I already had all the shop lists and we thought why don’t we start Deezo.”
“When we have ideas we come to the kids. When we find our kids love certain topics like dinosaurs or horses we try to put it on the clothes.
And now Deezo is aiming to promote awareness of sustainability for the next generation.
“When the opportunity presented itself where there was such a product as recycled polyester, which came from plastic bottles found in the ocean… When it was available, money wasn’t even an issue.
“Any soft plastics like we can recycle in the local supermarket can be transformed into clothing lines. As far as the fabric, you can’t even tell that in a previous life it was a plastic bottle. It doesn’t feel stiff or edgy or anything like that.
“We are ‘the happy fashion’ and we want to do good in life. We want the kids to wear the Deezo clothes so they will be happy. People will look at them and see the bright colours and the funny ideas and they will smile.
“We want to make the world a better place and it doesn’t go hand in hand with having a mountain of rubbish after the kids move on from a size six to a size eight and so on.”
The Moria family emigrated to Australia from Israel in 2003. Edo and Shlomit spent their time travelling from city to city until they finally settled upon Warburton.
“When we arrived here, I had never been to Australia before, so I didn’t know where to go… For some reason we landed in Melbourne thinking we will find the right place and we didn’t.
“But every second weekend we ended up going to Warburton and we were invited to a party in Millgrove and everyone was so friendly. Everytime we went to Warburton the local people were so friendly.
“When we finally ended up buying a place, it had to be in Warburton and I think that was one of our best decisions ever.”
Mr Moria shared what made Warburton so special.
“It’s the fern trees for me, I love the fern trees,” he said. “I can’t get over walking inside the rainforest, it just blows my mind. I’ve been here for 15 years and it’s just fantastic, I just can’t get enough.”
