Life in HEATTECH with Dale Vine

Dale wears HEATTECH Knitted Cap and HEATTECH V Neck T-Shirt (Short Sleeve) under a Flannel Checked Long Sleeve Shirt.

UNIQLO is led by the brand’s philosophy of LifeWear where clothing is designed to make everyone’s life better. It is simple, high-quality, everyday clothing that is inspired by life’s needs. This winter, UNIQLO is featuring conversations with real, everyday Aussies who work, play and live in our HEATTECH range. UNIQLO’s HEATTECH range, driven by technology and innovation, serves as a base layer or thermal to help keep you warm during the colder months.

Dale Vine first made a name for himself appearing alongside his partner Sophie on The Block (2012). He captured audience attention with his down to earth personality and enviable landscaping and DIY expertise, which saw him returning to The Block in 2013 and 2014.

Dale runs his own landscape business called Dvine Scapes and after more than 15 years of landscaping, he wrote his first book, ‘Dale Vine’s Outdoor Reno Guide’.

A country boy through and through, Dale grew up in Ouyen (Northern Victoria) - a town with a population of just over 1,000. From day dot, Dale had a creative flair and a love for the outdoors, and he shares with UNIQLO Australia how this has matured into a highly successful career.

How did you get into landscaping?
I’ve always had an interest in nature and when I was a kid, I always dreamt of being a park ranger when I grew up. I think because we went camping every Easter, up at Hattah – Kulkyne National Park on the Murray River, and the ranger would always come around and check your site. They seemed to have the cruisiest job ever. They’d come and say, ‘G’day’, check everything and then just sit down and have a beer with your mum and dad before going to the next camp. I thought jeez - what a great job!

I got into nature tourism and did a year of that and it wasn’t going in the direction I thought it was, so I changed and started doing a horticulture course. From there, I got picked up by a landscaper who was looking for an apprentice. I applied and ended up getting it. I haven't looked back from landscaping since. Landscaping requires you to be a jack of all trades and really fits all the things I want in a job - I also get to be outside all the time.

We do everything from carpentry work, by building decks and pergolas, to low voltage lighting work throughout gardens. It covers a bit of everything, which keeps me interested.


Are there any special projects that you are working on at the moment?
I've just finished a nice driveway and path. I love working with natural stone. So, whether it's bluestone or sandstone, I love giving them all a go and seeing how they come up.

The trend of ‘crazy paving’ has come back massively, throughout landscaping in the last, probably, two or three years. Everywhere is looking like the 70s again with the random stone – and I love it. I think it looks so good.

Anything that's a bit more creative than just your standard sort of paving. That's probably the funnest thing that I'm incorporating into a lot of designs and people are enjoying this at the moment.

Dale adds the Men’s Premium Lambswool Crew Neck Long Sleeve Sweater in Dark Grey to his outfit.

Do you have a favourite project to date?
I don't often do projects for other designers, but I did do one that was done by a nice designer in Melbourne. I collaborated with another landscaper actually - I did some elements and he did others. It was by COS Design in Melbourne who are a pretty big design mob.

That was cool, working on a nice design done by a pretty well-known company and then seeing that come to life. Yeah, so that was a ripper. I mean, I like all the projects that I work on whether they're big or small.


Tell us about your time on The Block.
We (Dale and his partner Sophie) sort of laugh about it now because we'd always just rented houses. We’d never owned one when we went on The Block.

Our styling was literally just all sorts of hard rubbish items and cheap things that we found on eBay or Facebook Marketplace or stuff that we'd picked up nice and cheap. It was a real eclectic bunch of vintage stuff that we had throughout our rental properties. We'd never really had the money to spend on nice furnishings and things like that. So, we sort of brought that into the first Block home that we created, which was a little bit different to most of the others on there.

We recycled some doors that were actually from the property that people were throwing out, sanded them back and used them as a double bed head and stuff like that. It wasn't as modern as what the other houses were doing. That was our style and we loved it - and we've evolved a lot since then.

Everyone would enjoy having a crack at renovating a house but if you can't do it, you can't do it. The Block allows you to do that on their budget, which is cool.


The Block was a great launchpad for your book. What motivated you to write it and share your knowledge further?
No one’s buying a book or reading it from me unless I had some sort of a leg up, so yeah, absolutely! The Block sort of provided opportunities like that.

It's a funny thing to say that you've written a book, I think. I like to laugh about it with mates and family. I pull them up to say, ‘Well when you're an author... you think about it like this’ - just to say that I'm an author. I think mum bought 99% of the copies that got produced. I'm happy as long as they were sold. It was good fun - and it’s a good book!

Inspiration and motivation for writing the book were that there's not many books that are out there landscaping-wise and garden design-wise and are for your everyday Average Joe homeowner, or even for people who are renting. So, it basically says it on the cover – ‘it's a DIY guide for any budget’.

There's a lot of high-end landscaping books that you can buy and really find inspiration from the expensive, beautiful gardens that are very high-end and have great photos - but there weren't many there that were achievable.


How do you deal with working outside in the colder months?
Hot coffee on the way to work. I think that would be a lot of people's ritual even not in winter. You gotta get something in you before you get going, and like many tradies, you get in the car and you pump the heater up as high as it'll allow you to go. Then you want to sit in the car for another five minutes, just warming up before you brave the cold.

I don't wear gloves. I'll give you that much. I don't like the feel of gloves - so I've never worn gloves to keep warm or even in a gardening sense, but I do rug up. I usually have a shirt, a jumper and then I'll either have a down vest or a fleecy jacket or something to go over the top and a beanie.

The UNIQLO HEATTECH V Neck T-Shirt (Short Sleeve) is awesome. It feels nice. You can definitely feel the extra layer and it keeps you warm when you’re outdoors. So, I’m actually really keen to chuck that on and I might be able to lose one of the bulkier layers. I'm not always too concerned about the lower half. I still rock shorts... a lot!


What’s on the horizon for the rest of 2020?
Plenty more landscaping to be done. Lots of jobs booked in. It should be an exciting finish. It was a slow start for a lot of people with the way it turned out.

Once we get all the green lights for everything, again, I think everyone should speed up to a really big finish, which is not uncommon for most trades at the end of a year. But for me, especially, it should be pretty busy.

During the COVID-19 lockdown people were at home more, realising what was wrong with their house and what needed doing. I think a lot of people started ticking off jobs that they had for years that were starting to annoy them when they were looking at them every day.

Dale wears the below HEATTECH items:

HEATTECH V Neck T-Shirt (Short Sleeve)
HEATTECH Knitted Cap

SHOP THE HEATTECH COLLECTION