How Rebecca Vallance Translated Bedazzled Femininity Across Borders

There’s no mistaking a Rebecca Vallance design.

Though they run the gamut from suiting to bustier crop tops to wedding guest frocks, it’s rare to see a garment from the designer without some sort of beading, bedazzling or bows. Silhouettes are feminine, from full A-line skirts to barely-there minis, done in bold patterns like polka dots or florals, in bright hues such as butter yellow or bubble gum pink.

That uniting aesthetic is what Vallance calls the “RV DNA.”

“You walk into a department store and even if there are no brand names above the collections, you can spot the Rebecca Vallance area,” she told The Business of Fashion.

That moment of recognition is an increasingly global experience. While the brand is based in Vallance’s hometown of Sydney and all of her 11 stores are in Australia, 60 percent of sales now come from overseas. The RV DNA has evolved to adapt to each market’s retail ecosystem. Vallance tailors her designs to where they’ll be sold, creating both “northern” and “southern” collections. Currently on sale in the “northern” markets, which include the US, Europe and the Middle East, are a number of extra-sparkly holiday-ready looks, while the “southern” markets — primarily Australia and New Zealand — are being sold lightweight silks and open-backed numbers for vacation. That dynamic, she said, allows them to sell to retailers based in both geographies.

“I design for the US girl, for the Middle Eastern girl, for the European girl and for the Australian girl,” she said. “I really know my girl.”

The through line connecting all Rebecca Vallance girls, including high-profile fans like Zara Phillips, daughter of Princess Anne, and Nicky Hilton, who she did a design collaboration with last fall, is not just in the ladylike details. It’s also the price point in the wide gap between contemporary and luxury – still a splurge, but not unimaginably expensive. Almost all dresses cost under $2,000, with many priced under $1,000.

But perhaps Vallance’s biggest strength is her understanding of how to make women feel good for special occasions, from how much skin they want to show to the parts of their bodies they typically want to cover up, according to Tiffany Hsu, the chief buying officer at Mytheresa.

The strategy is resonating. Since 2022, the size of Vallance’s business has tripled, with nearly 34 percent growth expected this year. The brand has always had major wholesale presence — beyond Mytheresa, stockists include Net-a-Porter, Saks and Revolve — but this year, they’re amplifying those efforts with a three-month pop-up in Harrods, an exclusive holiday collection for Mytheresa and a permanent shop-in-shop in Harvey Nichols. A new chief executive, Deborah Foreman, joined in July, and the brand introduced both denim and jewellery collections in 2025, too.

“You never feel uncomfortable in Rebecca’s designs,” she said. “It’s not conservative, it’s sexy and playful, but you always feel really comfortable in it.”

Going Global

Having worked as a fashion publicist prior to launch, Vallance said she took note of what emerging brands did right — and wrong — and applied those lessons to her own business, which she started in 2011. It helped her receive early wholesale attention, too — Harvey Nichols picked up her first collection.

But while wholesale was a priority from the start, it took some iterating to refine her vision to work at scale. A game-changing moment early on, she recalled, was a two-hour sitdown with Lisa Aiken, then the fashion director at Net-a-Porter. Aiken went through each piece and explained the tweaks she’d make to better position it for sale — altering the cut to make a dress read sexier, or giving a dress a lower back.

“I wrote notes like you’ve never seen a human being write notes before,” Vallance recalled, going back to London, her home base at the time, to rework the collection. She presented the reworked pieces to the Net-a-Porter team, who began stocking the brand — and continues to do so today.

“That was a total game changer,” she said. “It only takes one of the big guys to pick you up, and then all of a sudden there’s a real global interest.”

Vallance said she’s still incorporating feedback even as her brand takes off around the world. Her bridal collection, for instance, came about after someone from Net-a-Porter recommended she consider the category because of how well her eveningwear was selling.

Hsu said Vallance’s willingness to listen is part of the reason she’s an ideal partner for a multi-brand retailer. She said Vallance will analyse which of her products is performing well on Mytheresa, and then make it in a different colourway or fabrication, or take one of the retailer’s requests for a particular piece and deliver multiple iterations.

“Some brands will say ‘This is my brand, don’t tell me what to do,” she said. “Rebecca is the opposite of that.”

While wholesale has been a major growth engine for the business, connecting with consumers directly is increasingly a priority, and is the driving force behind the brand’s store expansion in Australia. Their feedback, she said, is equally important — for example, when tariffs were first put in place, the brand raised US prices, but backtracked because she ultimately “didn’t feel comfortable with where the pricing was at.”

What’s Next

Vallance is best known for her eveningwear — particularly her gowns, midi or mini-dresses and jumpsuits — but lately, she’s been thinking about dressing her customer head-to-toe.

Jewellery launched this fall, in part because of a request from Mytheresa, but also to cater to in-store customers who want to buy their event look in one place. Clutch bags are set to drop in February, another natural add-on for a customer buying a dress to wear to a wedding.

Any extension, she insisted, needs to feel “relevant” to her customer. An athleisure collection during Covid, for instance, fit the moment, but didn’t fit long-term with the brand’s put-together, elevated look. Denim, released earlier this year, made more sense; the collection includes sleek flared jeans — almost a substitute for a trouser — as well as bustier tops and dresses in the fabric.

“When I’ve tried to branch out from that [aesthetic], that’s when I’ve fallen over,” she said. “The second you pretend to be somebody else, the customer sees straight through it.”

Further global growth is also on the horizon. The Middle East is a particular area of interest — this month, she’s introducing her first modest dressing collection to target that shopper more directly, rolling out long-sleeve dresses, floor-length skirts and more. She’s also interested in branching out its brick-and-mortar presence beyond Australia; she sees the upcoming Harvey Nichols shop-in-shop as a way to test out building a physical presence in a new market. And she’ll soon get a heavy dose of exposure to audiences of all backgrounds: earlier this fall, Qantas, Australia’s national airline, announced it had selected Rebecca Vallance to design its staff uniforms.

Across categories and regions, Hsu said that Vallance’s success is rooted in her ability to design clothes that her customer wants to wear: Well-fitting, confidence-boosting and offering something special, whether it’s bejewelled straps or halter straps that dangle down to a dress’ hem.

“She understands the needs of each region, and she will work to make sure everyone’s needs are covered,” she said. “That’s why it’s such a commercial collection, because she listens to the consumers.”