Founders of fashion brand The Daily Edited cut ties

Tran’s last day at the business was Tuesday, when she had farewell drinks with her former colleagues. It is not known whether Liu attended.

The Daily Edited made its mark by getting in at the early stages of monogramming mania in the mid-2010s, marketing the idea that no personal accessory – from suitcases to phone cases and mugs – couldn’t benefit from being stamped with one’s initials. It ran its own boutiques in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, as well as concessions at several David Jones stores and a thriving online business.

But COVID dealt a blow to the brand, with court documents filed by Ms Liu showing the brand’s revenue had climbed from $18.74 million in 2016-17 to $27.54 million in 2017-18, only to dip to $25.78 million in 2018-19 and $23.56 million in the 2019-20 financial year.

Tran said she was characterising her years at The Daily Edited as “a stepping stone in a very long career”.

“I am a very positive person so I never want to have any bad energy out there,” she said in wishing Liu well with the business’ future.

Still, Tran says in hindsight she could have been more open about the court action, especially with the company’s own staff. “For me, it was hard to maintain a sense of normality in the business once [the court action] was very much out there [in public] – so it made it difficult to manage teams and expectations,” she says. “I was very lucky and thankful and grateful that people had my back.”

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Tran plans to focus on building her existing homewares business, In the Roundhouse, which was also implicated in the court action over the alleged misallocation of business expenses to The Daily Edited, as well as launching new ventures in the fashion and beauty space. She is also working with the US-based founders of RewardStyle, an affiliate marketing business that recoups commissions for influencers who recommend products, to establish the brand in Australia.

“It was always vaguely a dream of mine to have a range of different businesses so I could work across them and do the functions I found most enjoyable,” she says.

Liu says she was looking forward to “sharing my future vision for the business … [and] continuing [its] growth both locally and internationally in the years ahead”.