Sisters see sales roll in for their designer-inspired sunglasses after Sophie Monk wears them

Daily Mail Australia may earn commission from some links on this page.

Sisters with no business experience who started producing designer-inspired oversized sunglasses were shocked when an Australian celebrity wore them and catapulted the brand into the spotlight.

Tammy Schmidt and Kylie Thomasz are the creators of skye + lachborn from his love of dramatic glasses.

The brothers had no real business experience other than working previous corporate jobs and the idea of ​​starting an e-commerce business was both daunting and exciting.

“We were really going against the grain of small glasses being in at the time, but we knew fashion comes and goes and there are always people who really love the oversized look,” they said.

Juggling motherhood with a new business and having to learn all about social media and running a website from scratch was a great learning experience for the sisters.

“We wanted to produce high-quality designer-inspired sunglasses at a truly affordable price. we had often bought expensive designer glasses for over $700 so we needed to make sure ours was under $100 including protective covers.

“Giving customers the confidence to buy a highly personal product online is also a big challenge. We wanted to make sure customers wouldn’t hesitate to shop online, which is why we offer free, easy returns on all sunnies.

“Customers don’t even have to pay for return shipping, as we cover those costs in case the glasses don’t fit.”

The couple quickly discovered that influencer marketing was a fantastic way to build brand awareness, so they focused much of their marketing budget on influencers.

“We would easily spend $3,000 on various influencers, some of which were successful and some of which were outright flops,” they said.

“We quickly discovered that the number of followers a person can have does not equal the ROI.

‘We created spreadsheets of all the influencers we work with and tried to identify who we could continue to have genuine working relationships with.

“It became clear that micro-influencer was where we needed to focus our attention, and since then we’ve built some amazing relationships with mom-influencers who really love our sunglasses and are happy to share them with their audience.”

skye + lach built a steady stream of income in its first three years, but the sisters were still waiting for their ‘pinch me time’.

It wasn’t until one day in 2020 that they noticed Sophie Monk started following the brand on Instagram and liking some of their posts.

“From there we contacted her and asked if we could send her some of our sunglasses,” they said.

‘A few weeks later he wore our glasses and tagged the brand and of course this was a super exciting day for our small business.

He especially liked the habanero style and since then it has become a bestseller for us. We have sold over 5,000 pairs of Havana grievance only.’

The brand immediately saw an increase in sales after Sophie’s endorsement, with purchases beginning to arrive “every 10 seconds on the website.”

‘It was a crazy day for us! When you go from making an average of 10 sales a day to over 100 in an hour, you really pinch yourself and we are so grateful to Sophie for that moment,” they said.

And the best thing about this story is that we never had to pay him. She shared it because she really loved the brand and that we were just two sisters from Australia, doing what we love.