"After 43 Years, I'm Retiring My Squeegee" — Margot Hale (66) Retires the Hand-Printed Patterns Behind Jarah Melbourne's Colourful Blouses
Margot Hale has hand screen-printed every bold, colourful pattern used in Jarah Melbourne's lightweight blouses since the boutique's earliest days on Chapel Street — mixing every ink colour herself, one screen pull at a time. As her old friend Jarah closes the shop's doors for good, Margot is retiring her squeegee too. Every blouse sold from what's left helps Jarah close properly, not empty-handed.
South Yarra, Melbourne. The studio smells of pigment ink and warm cotton fresh off the drying rack. Pinned above the workbench, a row of hand-cut screens, each one worn soft at the edges from decades of use. Margot pulls a squeegee across the newest one, and a burst of colour blooms through the mesh onto plain cotton — a pattern that, in a few hours, will be a Jarah Melbourne blouse. "I still get the same little thrill every time the screen lifts," she says. "You never quite know exactly how the colour's going to sit until it does."
A Friendship Forged Over a Screen and a Squeegee
Margot trained as a textile printer at a small studio in Fitzroy, mixing pigments by hand long before she ever met Jarah. The two crossed paths at a Sunday market in the early '80s, Margot selling hand-printed scarves from a fold-out table, Jarah newly signed onto her first lease on Chapel Street with a mostly empty shop to fill. "Jarah bought three scarves off me and asked if I'd ever printed onto garment fabric," Margot laughs. "I said not yet. She said, well, would you like to try?"
From there, it became a quiet arrangement that lasted over four decades: Jarah ran the shop, and in a small studio a few streets over, Margot kept printing. Never mass-produced, never outsourced — just small hand-printed batches a few times a year, each colourway mixed fresh in her studio before being made into the blouses that became, without either of them planning it, one of the shop's most requested pieces.
Forty-Three Years of Jarah Melbourne — and a Quiet Collaboration
Since then, Margot estimates she's hand screen-printed somewhere close to 80 original colourways, each one mixed and pulled in small batches before she moved on to the next. No digital printers, no repeat orders from a file — every pattern started as hand-cut screens and hand-mixed pigment, layer by layer, colour by colour. "People ask if I ever get bored of colour," she says. "I never have. I just keep mixing different ones."
The Colourful Lightweight Shirts — the collection you're looking at now — represent what Margot calls "the boldest ones I ever made": graphic, sun-bright prints on breathable cotton and linen blends, designed to move easily through warm Australian days. A little over thirty designs remain from the last run she ever printed.
What Makes This Collection So Special
- Hand screen-printed, not digitally printed: Every pattern is pulled by hand through a silk screen, one colour layer at a time — no two runs ever came out quite identical.
- Hand-mixed pigment inks: Margot mixes every colour herself in small batches, so shades carry small, honest variations from piece to piece.
- Lightweight cotton and linen blends: Built to breathe through warm Australian summers — no clinging, no overheating.
- Relaxed, considered fit: Designed to move easily and flatter real bodies, not runway samples.
- One of the last true hand-printed runs left at Jarah Melbourne: Once these designs are gone, there won't be a reprint. Margot isn't printing more.
Customers Who've Kept Theirs for Years
Jarah keeps a small box behind the counter — cards, photos, the odd handwritten note customers have sent in over the years about a blouse they bought. "People send pictures from garden parties, from long lunches, from a holiday on the coast years later," Jarah says, pulling out a card postmarked 2018 from a customer in Torquay.
That kind of longevity isn't an accident. Where a mass-market print takes minutes to generate digitally, Margot's takes several days from first hand-cut screen to finished, cured fabric — mixing pigment to get a particular shade of coral or cobalt just right, then curing each print so the colour holds through years of washing. "That's why the shades sit slightly differently across a run," she says. "One blouse might run a touch warmer than the next. That's not a flaw. That's proof it was actually pulled by hand, not printed by machine."
Why Now, After 43 Years
"My hands aren't what they were," Margot says, setting down the squeegee. "Years of pulling ink across big screens catches up on your wrists eventually. I can manage a couple of hours of printing now, maybe three on a good day — it used to be all day, easily." She's not the one closing the shop — that decision was Jarah's — but this particular collaboration, the one that's quietly run alongside Jarah Melbourne for forty-three years, is coming to a natural end regardless.
It's been a hard few years for small boutiques like this one, and Jarah has been fighting to close the shop the right way — not with an abrupt shutter, but by finding every remaining piece a home before the doors close on Chapel Street for the last time. Clearing out what's left of Margot's blouses is one small, personal part of that. "I'd rather see this colour out in the world than folded in a box in my garage," Margot says simply.
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What Customers Are Saying
"I didn't expect a blouse to make me a little emotional, but knowing it's one of the last hand-printed ones Margot will ever make — it just feels different to put on."
Helen Vickers, 61 — Fremantle, WA"Wore mine to a long lunch and had four separate people ask where it was from. The colour is nothing like the flat prints I usually find."
Pauline Ostrowski, 57 — Newcastle, NSW"Bought it for myself after retiring. Silly to say a blouse makes a Tuesday feel like an occasion, but here we are."
Diane Boothe, 64 — Hobart, TAS
Where to Find This Collection
Margot's Colourful Lightweight Shirts are only available through Jarah Melbourne — Jarah looks after every online order herself, from the same shop she's run for forty-three years. Once what's left is gone, this particular collection won't be printed again.
To be upfront: this isn't the cheapest colourful blouse you'll find online. A digitally printed blouse from a fast-fashion site will always cost less — and if that's genuinely all you're after, that's a perfectly reasonable choice. This one is for people who want something that started as an actual hand-pulled print, small variations and all, and don't mind that it costs a little more for that. If that's not you, no hard feelings.
Jarah's Personal Guarantee
30-Day Money-Back Guarantee. "I only want these going to women who'll actually wear them," Jarah says. Try it for 30 days — if it's not right, send it back for a full refund, no questions asked.
We've never liked discounting. "It cheapens the work," Margot always said. But with the shop closing, we did something simpler instead.
Order any of what's left, and the more you take home, the more comes off automatically at checkout — our way of helping empty the shelves properly instead of packing them into storage.
Save 60% off · Free shipping today only · Limited prints left
The Internet Loves Margot's Prints
"Popped into the Jarah Melbourne shop on Chapel Street before it closes — the little print studio out the back smells like an actual working press. Ink everywhere, fabric drying on every line. Bought two on the spot."
Marion Kelleher, 63 — Melbourne, VIC"My sister saw mine on a video call and ordered hers within the hour. Now I understand why."
Yvonne Castellano, 59 — Adelaide, SA"It's strange buying from a shop that's closing, but I'm glad I got one more piece of it before it was gone."
Roslyn Faber, 60 — Sydney, NSWOnly This Season — Then It's Over
Jarah expects to close the Chapel Street doors for good within the next few weeks. "Once these prints are gone, Margot won't be printing more," Jarah says quietly. There's no next print run coming, no restock planned — once what's left sells, this particular collection is done. Between the discount and the growing interest, what remains of the Colourful Lightweight Shirts is expected to sell out well before then.
Closing Thought
It's the kind of blouse you don't just hang at the back of the wardrobe. Every one carries a bit of a Fitzroy print studio, a bit of a market stall in the early '80s, and forty-three years of two friends who never quite meant to build a business — they just kept showing up for each other.
— Naomi Carrick, for Print Room Journal 🎨