About us

Dear Little Panko is an online second hand women’s clothing shop located in Melbourne, Australia, selling preloved clothing, shoes and accessories such as bags, jewellery, scarves and other lovely pieces.

Our gorgeous customers are located all around Australia and New Zealand, from urban, regional and rural regions, and we even have a some wonderful customers outside local waters including Singapore, US and UK.

We have a very particular bent for specific Australian and New Zealand designers, and fabulous pieces that echo their vibe – we love colour, prints, good cuts, good quality fabric and general fun!

So if you’re a fan of brands such as Obus, Kuwaii, Kowtow, Nancybird, Jericho Road, Gorman, Frock Me Out, Kumo, Doops and international brands such as Lucy & Yak, Tony Chestnut, APC, Marimekko – or similar lovely brands – you’ll likely enjoy our shop!

It’s true that there’s a lot of re-sellers out there. Truthfully, we think that’s great! That may sound weird from a shop like ours, but the fact is that each of us have a different fashion point of view.

We believe that shopping preloved should be the same experience as shopping directly with your favourite brand: you should know what the second hand shop is about and trust that you will find something that suits your style. Here’s a few things that we believe make us special:

We aim to be as sustainable and eco-friendly as possible. Not only do we sell gently used women’s clothing, shoes and accessories, but we also exclusively use recycled and compostable packaging. This includes:

• Compostable mailers, sticky tape, bubble wrap and labels
• Recycled paper
• Water soluble garment bags (you can put them on your plants after being dissolved!)
• Recycled cardboard carry bags for order pick up
• We actively avoid plastic day-to-day.

We take pride in our focus on our sustainability and embrace opportunities to improve. Please do contact us if you have any suggestions, comments or questions.

A long (possibly too long) note from the founder, Bonny.

Clothes have always been my passion. As a teenager I longed for the most fashionable brands but of course they were expensive. When I was old enough, I got a job and the only thing I wanted to do was buy clothes! But not just any clothes. I wanted the good stuff: pieces from boutiques, eye catching prints, handmade pieces, high quality fabric, beautiful cuts.

I was always looking. Sometimes it was on a lunch break, other times, when I was younger and had the time, I’d travel across the city just to visit a single boutique because I knew they’d have something I’d never seen before; something that was colourful with a unique print, something possibly handmade, something of high quality that I could treasure. That, to me, was very exciting!

I first started re-selling in 2007. It started as a way to support myself while I was studying. I’m not sure I was that good at it in those early days. Selling something at the outset sounds easy, and in a way that’s true. You can whack something up on an online platform and create a listing, but keeping that simple yet informative can be tricky – plus creating your own voice as a seller, that's akin to finding your own personal style. For many of us, that takes time. I worked in a variety of different retail boutiques during my high school and university studies. I would often get asked: “do you own this store?”. I’d look around ruefully and answer no. I wished I did.

As I moved away from retail and into office jobs, I never stopped re-selling. I realised, after probably too much time, that it wasn’t really about the money; it gave me a lot of joy. It dawned on me that I still wanted my own store – it was on my bucket list but seemed like a distant, unobtainable
dream.

However, like many of us who lived through the pandemic, I realised that what I wanted in life was ultimately to create as much joy as possible. For me and the small and friendly Dear Little Panko team, that joy is found in unique, beautiful, well crafted, colourful, high-quality second-hand pieces from Australian and New Zealand designers and sharing them with others.

We hope you enjoy our curated collection too!

Bonny xx

We were founded in a household with a cat named Panko, who delighted in playing with, and sometimes good naturedly spoiling, some pretty lovely clothes! Like us, she was tenacious in her quest and took delight in beautiful things. Needless to say, we keep all goods far from her reach (so never fear, all stock is kept in a pet-free environment!), but her ability to find the best pieces and take joy in them was truly an inspiration. Well, that and the fact that she is undeniably cute! So we named this brand in her honour. 🐈