Spotlight on: Belinda Gallo from IN THE SAC

Step into the universe of textiles and meet Belinda Gallo, the Co-Founder of IN THE SAC. With over two decades in the industry, Belinda, or “Belle” to those lucky enough to know her, is here to share her insights, journey and the creative vision behind her brand.

Ready for some textile talk?

Hey Belle! You’ve been working in the textile industry for more than 20 years now. Could you tell us a little bit about your career journey and how you came to starting IN THE SAC?

My personal journey really began at a young age. I studied textiles in high school, which I loved, but funnily enough, I ended up studying Naturopathy when I left year twelve. But it was three years into my naturopath studies that I realised my real calling, which was fashion and textiles.

Soon after that I began my career as a textile buyer for the fashion industry, and I quickly developed a passion for natural fibres and textiles, and the absolute love of working with colour and developing my own colour-ways in prints and linen yarn dyes.

Without giving away too much about my age, but I would say about twelve years after that, I finally achieve my dream career of becoming the Creative Director at Martin and Savage, which is our parent company and one of Australia’s last standing true textile wholesalers for the fashion industry.

It was about that time David (my business and life partner) and I knew we needed to diversify the business, as we were seeing the fashion division shrink due to most Australian fashion labels producing their ranges abroad. So around 2010 IN THE SAC came to life.

It just seemed like a natural progression that we would get into homewares, interiors and more recently, soft furnishings with Raffles textiles. (Raffles is our soft furnishing division where we import and curate only natural fibres which we sell direct to Trade, Interior design and Architect studios.)

And a fun fact when we launched IN THE SAC we started the range in white only and today we have over twenty six colours in our range.

Staying true to your brand whilst remaining relevant in the lifestyle space is so important. How much of an influence does travel and European trends have on your designs and fabrications?

I’ve always been influenced by global trending and, of course, travel. Going to exotic places, seeing and experiencing different cultures is where most of my inspiration comes from, but alongside that I have developed a strong instinctive approach guided by my fifteen or more years working with trade clients and natural textiles. I’ve learnt to know what will work in a commercial design – style of product and most importantly colour palettes – as seen in our latest Puglia linen launch.

You have just launched a collaboration with stylist and author, Sarah Andrews, introducing a new concept to the bedroom – how did your first approach Sarah and how did you know she was the perfect person for the job? 

I met Sarah, @sarahandrews, over seven years ago through Instagram.

I sent her some bed linen for Captains Rest and a charcoal stripe pair of European pillowcases, which I developed out of a double weave linen, she fell in love and couldn’t believe how beautiful the quality was – she still has them today!

Over time we stayed connected and we always knew that one day we would work together. The timing seemed right for us with our recent collaboration of the stunning bed veils which we ended up producing out of that same double weave linen quality I gave her seven years back…

Sarah and I have always had a mutual respect for each other and our career achievements, I knew she would be perfect for this collaboration after our first brain storming catch up – when we both voiced how we wanted to push boundaries in creating something unique and new to bedding and I think we did that with the stripe Bed Veils.

With the home furnishings market experiencing unprecedented growth in the recent years – what sets IN THE SAC apart?  

I have to say our expertise in working with and producing textiles has enabled us to produce high-quality linen and my forecasting in colour direction is what sets us apart.

My goal from day one, was to set up IN THE SAC as a vertical company controlling every step from the purchasing of the flax direct from the growers in the Netherlands, to then controlling the spinning and weaving of the linen, to the final manufacturing of our 100% pure linen bedding and homeware products .

This way I have ownership of all aspects and most importantly I’m able to ensure consistency in the high quality of the IN THE SAC linen which is woven in our own specification and is exclusive to IN THE SAC

If you had to pick just one, what would your favourite item on your website be right now?

Hmm that’s a hard question to answer as we have launched so many beautiful new pieces recently. Apart from our bed veils, I would say our recently launched Puglia linen range, with its beautiful rich colours and its playful Organic cotton trim detail just brings a unique twist to bedding.

Describe your brand in 3 words

The best quality > haha > quality + innovative + sustainable