The One Thing I Reach For Every Single Time
In partnership with Madge Goods — use code DIRT15 for 15% off
I didn't expect a jumpsuit to change my life. That sounds dramatic, I know. But here I am, writing an entire blog post about one, so clearly something happened.
The Stella Jumpsuit by Madge Goods came into my world a few months ago and I have worn it so many times since that I'm genuinely a little embarrassed. It's terracotta red, which I would not have picked for myself in a lineup — and yet it is the first thing I reach for every single time I open my wardrobe.
Let me tell you why.
I wear a lot of hats. This jumpsuit wears all of them with me.
Running Dish the Dirt means my week looks a bit wild from the outside. One day I'm on a farm in gumboots getting the actual dirt on Australian flower growers. Another day I'm setting up my recording studio, mic'd up, trying to look like a person who has their life together on camera. Then there's markets, events, the school run, and everything in between.
For a long time I was doing that costume-change thing that no one talks about — where you're essentially getting dressed three times a day to suit three different versions of your life. It's exhausting and honestly, it's a waste of brain space I don't have.
The Stella Jumpsuit fixed that.
What it actually feels like to wear it
It's cotton drill. Proper, substantial, already-washed-and-softened cotton drill that moves with you instead of at you. It has five rear working pockets — real ones, not the fake suggestion of pockets that women's workwear usually offers. It zips up. You go.
The fit is relaxed without being shapeless, which is a harder thing to pull off than it sounds. I can layer a long sleeve underneath it when it's cold (hello, Melbourne winters) and it still looks intentional rather than desperate. I have worn it to record podcast episodes, walked markets in it, turned up to events in it, and yes — I have danced in it, which if you've seen my recent Reel you already know.
It holds up. It looks good. It requires zero thought.
The woman behind it
Madge Goods is the work of one woman — Louisa, a florist and creative who couldn't find a single thing to wear that kept up with her actual working day. She wanted something that could take her from an early morning market to working in a shop to going out straight after, without having to think about it.
So she made it.
I love that story because it's so deeply familiar to me and I suspect to a lot of you reading this. We work with our hands. We're on our feet. We move between worlds in a single day and we want to look like ourselves while we do it. That's exactly what the Stella delivers.
If you're on the fence
Get off it. Sizes 8 to 18, $180, and worth every cent of it. This is not fast fashion — it's the kind of thing you buy once and wear to death, which is exactly what I'm doing.
Head to madgegoods.com and find them at @madge_goods — and use DIRT15 for 15% off.
You can thank me later. Or don't — just send me a photo of you wearing yours. 🌻
Madge Goods gifted me the Stella Jumpsuit and I mean every single word of this.
