ENTREPRENURIAL blood runs deep through Bianca and Bridgett’s veins.
“Growing up, watching our parents work as hard as they did in their own real estate business, it was never really a question of us following in their footsteps and also owning our own business,” Bridgett said.
“It was really just a question of when and what we would do.
“Our Dad used to drum it into our heads — ‘you girls will own your own business one day, you will work for yourselves’.
“So in terms of that, I feel like it was always on the cards for us.”
The girls say it was the infamous “Jessie” jumpsuit worn by AFL star Marc Murphy’s wife Jessie Habermann to the Portsea Polo in 2017, that started it all.
“That’s the first piece we designed for ourselves under our own Bianca and Bridgett label, and it absolutely exploded,” Bianca says.
“Prior to that, we were struggling, we weren’t sure how to launch the business and how to make sure it succeeded.
“We had a bit of notoriety but we were working for free a lot – but that jumpsuit changed our entire lives.”
Six months later, the girls launched their first 10-piece collection – with the help of a $100,000 loan.
“It was an expensive exercise for us at the time, we didn’t have any serious money behind us, so we had to borrow to get the business started,” Bianca recalls.
“I think there’s a bit of a misconception that our parents put up the money for us to get started, but that couldn’t be less true.
“We borrowed the money from the bank, just like anyone else wanting to start a business.”
Bridgett admitted she used to have nightmares over the size of the loan.
“I remember when the money came into our bank account, I was like, ‘no, I don’t want it, take it back’,” she says.
The girls needn’t have worried – within three weeks they had repaid the loan in full.
“We used to pay ourselves a $150 a week wage, because we wanted to be really strategic and reinvest anything we made back into our business,” Bianca says.
“I remember when we upped that amount to $300 a week – we thought we’d made it big.”
The girls’ designs were flying off the shelves and on to the bodies of celebrities, socialites and WAGS across Australia – and before long, the globe.
Within 12 months, they were ready to conquer their next business venture – which all started with electrical tape.
“I’m a natural F-cup chest, and they often don’t sit how I want them to sit in clothes,” Bridgett says.
“There were things I wanted to wear that I couldn’t because I had to wear a bra, so we were constantly doing dashes to Bunnings to buy duct tape, and Bianca used to strap my boobs with it.
“It was horrible, the fumes were gross and oh my god how much it hurt to pull off, it was ruining my skin.”
Bridgett started looking online for an alternative – and was surprised that one actually didn’t exist.
“If you are entrepreneurial by nature and you Google something only to find out it doesn’t exist it’s like hitting the jackpot,” Bianca says.
“We knew we had to jump on it, and that’s how Booby Tape came about.”
So how did the girls launch the business? With a $250,000 party in Los Angeles – complete with a pinata full of cash and a swathe of star-studded, celebrity guests, including model Tammy Hembrow and influencers Anastasia Karanikolaou and Tana Mongeau.
In the week following the event, about one million people had scoped out the Booby Tape Instagram page.
“The feedback from women has just been amazing, girls send us photos every day in outfits where they’re using the tape and they’re telling us how much it’s changed their life and given them confidence,” Bianca says. “The reach has just been insane.”
Booby Tape is now sold in more than 35 countries across the globe, and the girls have just signed a deal with supermarket giant Woolworths to stock the product in their stores across the country.
Bridgett says there are now “thousands” of similar brands – including one from mega-celebrity and fellow entrepreneur Kim Kardashian West.
“We spent $6000 on beautiful bunches of flowers and Booby Tape kits for each of the Kardashians,” Bridgett recalls.
“We sent them out to the girls in the hopes of working with them. Kourtney posted them on her Instagram.
“About six months later, we were surprised to see Kim Kardashian had produced a product similar to ours.
“But it definitely made our sales go through the roof even more.
“In business, you just have to not worry about what the person next to you is doing, you just have to keep looking forward.”
Bianca says in a strange way, the COVID-19 pandemic gave them the time to focus on the Booby Tape Skin products.
“We had the idea for a while, but to be honest, we really didn’t have the time to do anything with it – it was just an idea,” she recalls.
“COVID gave us the time we needed to focus on it.”
And so, the world’s first skincare for breasts was created, in the midst of a global pandemic.
“With so many people stuck at home, there was a lot of pampering and self-care happening, so we felt like Booby Tape Skin would fit into the market really well,” Bridgett says.
“It did, and we’ve been absolutely thrilled with the success so far.”
The range, which includes an anti-wrinkle silicone chest pads, scrub, firming lotion and a luxe 24k gold breast mask, has “blown up” social media and been praised by celebrities including Sofia Richie, Sophie Monk and Emilee Hembrow.
Add a consulting business, where they share their business knowledge with other aspiring entrepreneurs, to their workload, and the sisters are well and truly “run off their feet.”
But they still find time to return home to their Mildura roots.
“We love Mildura, our family is there and at the end of the day, it’s our home base,” Bianca says.
