Meet the Byron couple behind the cult golf fashion label Birds of Condor

BYRON BAY couple Frankie and Zoe Kimpton built Birds of Condor from their garage into a cult fashion label blending golf, surf and music. Now they’re coming home, opening their first store on Lawson Street.

They started under their apartment, designing and then boxing up orders between coffee runs.

 

“The ceiling was so low, it was a bit of a bang-your-fist job and say, ‘Can I grab another coffee down here?'” Frankie said.

The idea took shape in Melbourne around 2013 and 2014 when Frankie was working as a booking agent for Mushroom and sneaking out to hit balls at Albert Park during lunch breaks.

“I think it was 20 bucks for a bucket of balls and a beer,” he said.

He’d walk in wearing black jeans and a Guns N’ Roses shirt, surrounded by players in crisp polos and tucked-in chinos.

 

“We’d walk in and feel totally out of place,” he said.

“But we’d still hit good balls and have fun, so I thought, why isn’t there golf gear for people like us? For the rest of us who just love the game.”

The first drop was 10 hats.

The couple moved home to Byron and started building the label, picking the brains of other successful local brands and firing up the brand’s Instagram account around 2016 and 2017.

“Honestly, we thought it’d just be our mates buying it,” Frankie said.

“But people overseas got it straight away. That blend of surf culture and golf really resonated.”

Within months, Birds of Condor was shipping to South Korea, Japan and the United States.

Frankie grew up surfing in Byron, competing and chasing waves three times a day.

 

Golf was what he and his mates did when the waves were flat.

As a kid, he and his mates jumped the Byron Bay Golf Club fences to fish balls out of the water, wetsuits still on, and came home with ear infections to prove it.

“Everything we do circles back to golf,” Frankie said.

“But it might start with a song, a surf vibe or something from pop culture. That mix is what makes it us.”

When Birds of Condor started out, golf fashion was stiff and predictable – all tucked-in polos and matching belts.

The culture hadn’t caught up with the idea that golf could be relaxed and expressive.

“We copped a few raised eyebrows and online digs early on,” Frankie said. “People didn’t quite get it at first.”

Before COVID, the family spent three straight years showing at the PGA Show in Orlando.

 

The first year, a couple in matching gear stopped at their booth, pointed and laughed.

“I remember thinking, wow, this could be a really tough trade show,” Frankie said.

By the end of the week, people were lining up.

“People were excited to see something new coming into golf,” he said.

The name and logo came after a long search.

A condor is a hole-in-one on a par five, also called a triple eagle, which is why the logo stacks three W-shaped eagles.

“We wanted something that didn’t hit you straight away,” Frankie said.

“Birds of Condor felt a bit mysterious, and it captured that feeling of magic on the course when everything stands still and you’re high-fiving your mates after rolling in a putt.”

Their first retail store opens Saturday at Shop 2, 13 Lawson Street, just up from the beach.

 

“Online, you can’t really feel it. You’re sitting alongside other brands,” Frankie said.

“In the store, we get to tell the whole story, the music we play, the people behind the counter, the vibe.”

The space includes a restored 1980s golf buggy sourced from Sanctuary Cove, new packaging and display details, and the latest collection in the window for launch.

“It feels like we’re graduating,” Frankie said.

“Ten years in, it’s time to give people the full Birds experience.”

The team remains Byron-based and the ethos unchanged.

“The brand is just an extension of the people behind it,” Frankie said.

“It’s who we are. We surf, we play golf, we hang with our mates.

“That’s the DNA.”