At 6ft tall and plus-size, shop-bought clothes had never fitted Maree O’Connor well.

Sewing offered her a solution – allowing her to use beautiful fabrics to make garments that fit just right.

One day, while on the lookout for colourful prints to make new dresses, she spotted some “amazing” fabrics being sold online.

Enticed by a yellow floral pattern and another black-and-white abstract design, she splashed out $600 (£450, A$900) on three orders.

Months later, none had arrived.

It was October 2024, and tired of waiting, the legal studies teacher from Melbourne, Australia, decided to set up a Facebook group to try to find out if anyone else was in the same boat.

The group exploded. Within two weeks it had drawn hundreds of members, according to Ms O’Connor.

She had unearthed a scandal that would consume the sewing world – from China to Europe, to the US.

In the group, other sewing enthusiasts detailed how they too had been waiting months – and in some cases years – for fabrics to arrive, while a supplier alleged it was owed tens of thousands of dollars.

At the centre of the controversy was globally renowned designer, Nerida Hansen.

Her company had grown rapidly during the pandemic, when she made a name for herself selling bold, distinctive fashion prints that set her shop apart from other retailers.

Popular with sewists – as members of the sewing community call themselves – around the world, her fabrics often appeared in influencers’ Instagram posts. Some newspapers had even dubbed her Australia’s queen of fabrics.

“People liked what she was doing and producing,” said UK-based artist Gabriela Larios, who has worked with Ms Hansen.

“My impression of her was that she was doing something different and new in Australia,” added Sarah Rowe, another artist who worked with Ms Hansen. “I was impressed by her, she was formidable.”

That’s exactly what excited Bergen Anderson, who ordered more than $3,300 (£2,500; A$5,000) of Ms Hansen’s fabrics in 2024.

She planned to use them to make clothes which she would sell through her US-based children’s clothing business.

But, as in Ms O’Connor’s experience, none of Ms Anderson’s goods arrived within the eight-week window that was promised.

Instead, she received a number of what she described as “generic” emails, saying her orders were soon to be printed and shipped.

She also received a number of emails from Ms Hansen saying suppliers were delayed sending goods because of events like national holidays.

“It was every excuse under the sun,” Ms Anderson said.

Frustrated and in search of answers, she too stumbled upon Ms O’Connor’s Facebook group.

In it, she found customers wondering where their money had gone – and why the company was still accepting orders even though so many people were saying their fabrics hadn’t been printed or shipped.

Suspicious of Ms Hansen’s business practices, Ms O’Connor encouraged customers to request refunds and dispute transactions with their banks.

Ms Anderson only managed to get two out of three payments reversed through her bank, meaning she was still $808 (£606; A$1,224) out of pocket.

Meanwhile, Ms Hansen had become aware of the Facebook group and contacted Ms O’Connor asking for it to be taken down, claiming that content posted in the group was defamatory – a claim Ms O’Connor rejected.

Ms O’Connor said Ms Hansen also offered her an immediate refund if she no longer wished to wait for her goods.

“I got my refund pretty much straight away, because she wanted to shut me up.”

But she decided not to shut up – or delete the group.

“She was just going to continue to do what she was doing, and take money from people because people were siloed right, they didn’t know what was going on.”

In the group people were sounding alarm bells about announcements from Ms Hansen saying she was rebranding, worried about what that would mean for their undelivered orders.

Ms Hansen went on to trade under a number of different business names online.

By then the group had grown beyond disgruntled customers to also include Nerida Hansen’s suppliers.

William Shan worked for a supplier in China that sold material to Ms Hansen’s company – until, he said, the payments stopped.

He was “helpless” when he “accidentally discovered” the Facebook group, he said.

Mr Shan alleged Ms Hansen’s firm failed to pay for two fabric shipments worth $52,000 (£39,000; A$78,700) in 2022.

He said he initially felt sympathy for Ms Hansen, who he thought “may have encountered difficulties”.

He continued supplying her in the hope it would “help her recover as soon as possible and collect her [company’s] debts”.

But he says later orders – worth thousands of dollars – also went unpaid.

“We [trusted Nerida] too much. From 2020 to the end of 2021, Nerida’s credit [had] been consistently good. So we did this stupid thing of continuing to supply her,” Mr Shan said.

Mr Shan’s company said it had hired numerous lawyers to try to recover the money owed by Ms Hansen’s companies, but she and her business associates stopped communicating.

The BBC also spoke to 11 artists and illustrators who said they had not been paid for their work with Ms Hansen’s brand.

Clémence Albertus, based in France, said she had been approached by Ms Hansen at an art fair in Paris about collaborating on fabric prints.

Given Ms Hansen was “really known for her fabrics”, Ms Albertus said she chose to trust her.

According to Ms Albertus, Ms Hansen wanted to license one of her designs to be sold in collaboration with a large European fabric retailer called Verhees – an opportunity Ms Albertus didn’t want to miss out on.

But after sending over her design, a delicate floral print, she heard nothing from Ms Hansen for months.

“I thought Verhees changed their mind, or that the collaboration Nerida x Verhees failed,” Ms Albertus said.

That was until one day in August last year, when she discovered her pattern “by chance” for sale on the Verhees website. She said it had been edited in different colourways without her consultation.

Ms Albertus contacted Ms Hansen numerous times asking about royalty statements and payment details but is yet to receive any money.

“It has been a real deception,” she said, adding that she estimates she is owed €2,000-€4,000 (£1750-3500; A$3,500-7,000).

Verhees told the BBC it was not responsible for royalty payments owed to designers featured in its collection, and that Ms Hansen was solely responsible for paying these.

It added it had now suspended the Nerida Hansen x Verhees collaboration.

Not all the artists who spoke to the BBC felt Ms Hansen was totally to blame for the lack of payments from her businesses.

Bron Alexander, based in New Zealand, said while she was owed payments for previous projects with Ms Hansen, it was her own fault she hadn’t been paid for her Verhees collection work as she’d failed to provide invoices when asked by Ms Hansen’s team.

Ms Alexander added that she believed Ms Hansen was a “visionary” and said she had “much empathy” for her financial situation. “She only ever wanted us [artists] to be successful.”

Others insisted business simply wasn’t Ms Hansen’s forte.

“I truly believe she wanted the best for everybody, I truly believe she wanted to be able to deliver, I truly believe she wanted to be able to pay everybody,” said Sarah Rowe, an artist who used to collaborate with Ms Hansen and is not owed any money. “I really believe she had good intentions to do all those things, and I also believe business is not her jam.”

Ms O’Connor felt differently.

“I think she’s quite intentional in what she’s doing,” she said. “If she was a disorganised businesswoman she would have quit a while ago.”

In September 2025, nearly a year after Ms O’Connor started the Facebook group, a public warning against Ms Hansen and her businesses was issued by the Victoria state consumer rights agency.

It was the result of multiple complaints – Ms O’Connor had advised fellow customers on the group to report their experiences to Australian authorities.

“I urge consumers to be wary about purchasing goods from Hansen’s online platforms or engaging further with Hansen,” Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV) director Nicole Rich said.

The warning said that over the course of one year, the agency had been contacted more than 120 times by customers claiming to have lost more than $19,800 (£14,900; A$30,000) in purchases.

It also said Ms Hansen had operated online under a range of business names, including Indigo Palm, The Kind Merch Co, Nerida Hansen Fabrics, Rebel Quilts, Australian Surface Art Collective, Fabric and Design and Nerida Hansen Print and Textiles. Ms Hansen said this was untrue, denying she used all of these to trade.

After the warning was issued, Ms Hansen announced she would be shutting down her businesses by the end of the month to start a new career.

But she continued promoting fabric sales on the website domain names Global De-stash and neridahansen.com into November.

In a statement to the BBC, Ms Hansen admitted she had made some “very poor” decisions relating to her businesses, adding her actions had caused her “great shame and embarrassment”.

She said she had experienced financial difficulties that led to her liquidating her company in late 2022 – before opening a new one in a new name.

Following that, she said she fell further behind with orders in 2024, citing supplier issues and business mismanagement, but insisted she was still in control of the situation.

“Even though I mismanaged orders terribly I was steering my own business wheel,” she said.

She had intended to have all orders completed by the end of January 2025, she said, but the creation of the Facebook group had led to a wave of refund requests and bank chargebacks being submitted all at the same time.

This left the business overwhelmed, Ms Hansen said, and caused her trading account to be frozen.

She still intended to fulfil every order and refund owed to her customers, she stated, but did not currently have the means to do so.

She alleged the attention brought to her businesses online by Ms O’Connor’s Facebook group had amounted to “horrific social media harassment” and defamation.

She claimed Ms O’Connor went beyond advocating for justice online. She accused her of encouraging others in the Facebook group to engage in what she describes as amounting to “digital stalking” and “physical stalking”, and that Ms O’Connor “publicly made deliberate attempts to sabotage [her] livelihood”.

Ms O’Connor disputed these allegations saying they were “outrageous”.

“Customers being persistent and demanding in terms of seeking a refund or product that the vendor had happily taken money for is not harassment,” she said.

Despite everything that has happened, Ms O’Connor is determined to continue sewing – though she insists she will never wear any of Nerida Hansen’s designs again.

She will continue to fight until Ms Hansen’s businesses are shut down, she says.

“Some people are still awaiting justice and we hope that can be achieved.”