INTERVIEW with Forty-Love || Brisbane Fashion Festival 2026 Designer (Hancock Prospecting Next Gen Group Show)
Hi, Dee. For my readers who don't know you yet, can you please introduce yourself?
Hi, I'm Dee Ridge, founder of Forty-Love — an Australian women's tennis and racquet sport label designed by players, for players. I started the brand because as a player I couldn't find garments that were both stylish and functional. There were plenty of activewear brands doing tennis-inspired drops, but no one with tennis genuinely at the heart of their brand narrative. Forty-Love is built around that. While tennis is our home, our pieces also carry across padel, pickleball, badminton and golf. We release small, considered capsule collections called Tournaments, and showing up authentically in the tennis community is at the heart of everything we do.
What challenges did you face when you started up your own label, and what advice would you give young aspiring designers?
Looking back after our first collection, one of the biggest things I learned was knowing which questions to ask the people you bring in to help build the brand. And I cannot overstate how important this is. Asking the wrong questions, or not knowing enough to ask the right ones, can have a real commercial impact on your business. Not everyone you work with will have your best interests at heart, and when you are new to an industry you do not always know what you do not know. I came in as a player with a background in social media and marketing, so the commercial and creative instincts were there. What I needed help with was pulling together the more technical elements and knowing how to find and work with the right people to do that well.
My advice to anyone starting out is to get familiar with others who are doing similar things. Not competitors necessarily, but founders who are navigating the same kinds of decisions and challenges. Build yourself a brains trust, almost a board of advisors, people whose judgment you trust and whose experience complements yours. Being able to run ideas past people who will give you an honest perspective is invaluable, especially in those early stages when every decision feels high stakes.
There was also surprisingly little research available on women's tennis wear behaviours and preferences in Australia specifically. I created my own surveyed for players across all levels and asked them what challenges they faced with their current tennis wear and what they wanted to see. What came back was incredibly varied because style is so personal. The challenge was pulling all of that together into a first collection that was both genuinely functional and stylish and timeless from day one. Nailing that from the start was really important to me.
And then there is the relentlessness of it. I am not naturally someone who loves asking for things or putting myself out there constantly, but when you are building a label from the ground up, you have to. You have to keep showing up even when it feels uncomfortable.
Does art in all its forms play a major part in your life?
Absolutely. It shows up for me when I play & watch tennis, travel, when I shop and when I scroll. I find creative inspiration when I least expect to and that translates into inspiration for future collections. For Forty-Love, one thing I feel strongly about is colour. Athleisure and activewear tend to lean heavily into basic neutral palettes, and while there is a place for that, it is not part of the Forty-Love brand identity. We want to celebrate colour and going forward we are excited to explore more pattern and print. I think there is a real appetite for that in the women's tennis space and it feels true to who we are as a playful modern brand.
How do you select the materials used in the clothes?
For us the most important aspect is functional materials that have longevity and work for both a walk to the coffee shop and a three set match on court. That means there need to be specific elements in the fabric that hold up across both contexts without compromise. Playing in Australia means the fabric has to work hard. We need materials that are moisture wicking, breathable and quick drying, that can survive weather conditions and prolonged exposure to the sun without breaking down. We are always thinking about how garments wash and last over time. Longevity is a core part of our design brief.
For our first collection, Tournament 1.0, we went with performance fabrics and the response has been beautiful. One of our top pieces of customer feedback is how soft and premium the material is, which speaks to comfort on court in a way that really matters. Going forward we’re looking forward to testing new fabric technology in the tennis and racquet sport space to give our buyers more options when it comes to the fabrics they put on their skin.
What are your plans for the future, and what can we expect in the coming years?
Our mission is to become the go-to women's tennis wear label for Australians and then expand internationally from there. I would love to explore WTA (women’s pro tennis tour) sponsorship or a partnership with a player, or even bring a collection to life in collaboration with a player. That feels like a really exciting space to move into.
For now we are very much in the awareness stage and the most important thing is to genuinely show up in the tennis and racquet sport space in an authentic way. We are not just a tennis drop. We host community events for women around Australia where they can come together over racquet sports in a relaxed environment and connect over one of the best sports. Growing that community aspect of the brand is something we care about; we have seen the incredible growth in the sport and it is really about how we build alongside that momentum.
Without giving too much detail away, what should we expect from your collection for Brisbane Fashion Festival 2026?
I believe we are one of the only athleisure and sport-focused brands on the showcase this year, which I think is really exciting. For many Australians, activewear is our daily uniform. Seeing something sporty on a runway makes complete sense as a reflection of how we actually live and dress every day.
The collection is made for play, travel and everyday life so I hope it stands out in that way. Tenniscore is having such a major moment globally and we are seeing it infiltrate fashion at the highest levels, so it will be lovely to bring a taste of that to a Brisbane runway. And of course Brisbane loves tennis and is home to some incredible tennis icons, so there is something really special about the way this intersects sport, fashion and culture locally.
Tickets are going fast. See Forty-Love on the runway. Buy your tickets HERE
Brisbane Fashion Festival Website: https://brisbanefashionfestival.com/
Brisbane Fashion Festival Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrisbaneFashionFestival
Brisbane Fashion Festival Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brisbane.fashionfestival/
Forty-Love’s Links:
Website: https://fortylove.com.au/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fortylove_club/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FortyLoveau
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fortyloveau
Pinterest: https://au.pinterest.com/FortyLoveAU/
Photo Credits:
First Photo: Model Rosie Tompson and Model Jemma Dalitz taken by Benjamin Hardwick and Juri Malashenok
Second Photo: Model Rosie Tompson and taken by Benjamin Hardwick and Juri Malashenok
