Short sleeves, shorter weeks: Aussie workwear brand TradeMutt trials four-day roster

Queensland-based social impact workwear brand TradeMutt is already two months into trailing a four-day work week, with founders Ed Ross and Daniel Allen deeming the response to the six-month trial as “incredible.”

TradeMutt is an Australian workwear brand by tradies for tradies that makes funky eye-catching workwear designed to start conversations about mental health among the blue-collar community, helping make an invisible issue impossible to ignore.

Co-founders Dan and Ed met on a building site back in 2014 when they started working for a new builder on the same day and eventually started exploring different business ideas. Then towards the end of 2015, Dan received the tragic news that one of his best mates had taken his own life. 

Ed said at the time both he and Dan found a gap in the workwear market.

“We were looking at different business ideas and saw that there was probably a big opportunity in the workwear game and no one had really done anything,” he said.

“And then as we’re sort of investigating that, we had Dan tragically lose his mate to suicide at the end of 2015 and that was sort of us being exposed to the mental health conversation, and of course, suicide. 

“It...