At Husskie, we love a risk taker, someone who doesn’t always play by the rules and doesn’t really care what other people think because really, they’ve got their own thang going on. Which is the exact reason why we went straight for the “Follow” button when we first came across How Two Live’s Insti account. In a sea of minimalistic palettes, sisters Jess and Stef Dadon are mixing things up with their bold personal styles and quirky fashion sense.
But it’s not just a “crazy colourful aesthetic” that the Radon sisters are bringing to the table, with the two having an entrepreneurial side that has seen them move beyond social media style influencing and into the realm of business. Early adopters of the idea of expanding social media “influence” into product development – February last year saw Jess and Stef leverage their How Two Live following to launch a line of shoes, TWOOBS.
Fascinated to hear how it’s all going, we tracked Jess and Stef down to chat about everything from styling and designing to what a usual day in their life looks like.
You have such an engaged following. Why do you think people have fallen in love with How Two Live?
How Two Live is all about being yourself and walking (or dancing) to the beat of your own sparkly drum. We’ve built up a strong following of young women who all seem to really relate to that message of staying true to yourself and letting your fabulous freak flag fly.
What goes through your mind when you’re choosing what fashion pieces to wear?
As far as fashion goes, we like our lives to be one big dress-up party – our wardrobe is like one huge costume box and every morning when we open it we get to decide who we want to be. We don’t really stick to one specific style, fashion is too much fun and we love way too many things.
Do you find you both tend to dress the same?
We have really similar taste in clothing and put things together the same way, so even if we haven’t discussed what we’re wearing in the morning, we’ll often rock up wearing similar things… or at least in the same colour palette. We actually share a wardrobe that we’re both constantly adding to so everything in it is up for grabs – there’s no: “This is Jess’ stuff and this is Stef’s”.
It’s a common misconception that you’re twins but there’s actually five years between you. Do you feel this age gap sees you bring different things to the table?
We definitely think a big part of the reason we’re so close is because we’re not twins – we grew up five years apart as you said, and while we were always close as sisters, we never had to share the same friends, the same room, or share a birthday. Now that we’re all grown up, we get to choose to share everything and almost play the twin part, which is so much fun!
Can you talk me through a usual day in your life?
Our days usually start separately, Jess will be overseeing orders for TWOOBS and making sure everything in the warehouse is running smoothly, and Stef will work from home or walk to a café near her house with her laptop for a work breakkie. Then we usually meet in the office mid-morning to touch base with our team and smash out a few productive hours. We always make time to squeeze in an arvo meeting or two and some time to take pics for the How Two Live and TWOOBS Insta accounts.
When you’re not working, what are your favourite things to do?
Our favourite things are probably sunshine, animals and chilling, so put us on a beach with our dogs in the middle of summer and we’ll be the happiest people on earth… oh and reality TV, we loooove reality TV!
Between How Two Live and TWOOBS we can’t imagine you do get much downtime! What’s been happening with the brand since your NYFW launch?
TWOOBS is like our little baby and it’s been so awesome to see her grow over the last year. We’ve had a huge summer with our second collection here in Aus, and we’re gearing up for an even bigger season in the US now that the weather is starting to warm up over there. We’ve also got a couple of really exciting TWOOBS collabs coming up next summer in Aus so it’s gonna be an epic year.
All images: @HowTwoLive