Call the fashion police

From a young age, Lauren Kennedy knew that she wanted to be a fashion designer. It was her passion. Her creative outlet.

- TOM WATSON

"If you asked anyone through high school, I was always going to be a designer. Fashion was sort of my life. I love the art of it, I love sketching - everything like that.

"So when I left school, I did fashion design. Then when I finished that degree, I was lucky enough to land a job as a junior designer at an Australian label."

After a year Kennedy quit. Reality didn't quite measure up to expectation and she wasn't getting the creative fulfilment from fashion that she craved.

Lacking a sense of direction, Kennedy opted for the well-trodden path taken by many Australians in their early twenties. She packed her bags and bought a one-way ticket to Europe.

"I travelled for about six months, but I ended up in San Francisco because one of my friends was interning at a fashion house over there.

"I had nowhere to stay, so one of my friends hooked me up with accommodation. I assumed it was a hotel or a hostel, but it was actually a startup house run by an Australian and a New Zealander who had their own startups and wanted to help other people who were coming over."

Having spent her whole life embedded in fashion, Kennedy admits that she had no idea what a startup house was at the time. As it turned out, it was an eyeopening experience.

"I spent three weeks immersing myself in the environment and speaking to all these people that I probably never would have met previously. They just took me along to everything that they were doing, and I was like, 'This is insane, how can I be a part of this?'"

Towards the end of her stay Kennedy remembers speaking to a French entrepreneur who was staying at the house. He asked her what she was going to do when she got home.