As a little girl, Maddi Newman had two great loves – playing footy and making funny videos for her family with her twin Hallie, who adored clothes, make-up and shoes.
Today, the sisters are still chasing those childhood passions – but now it’s for an audience of hundreds of thousands of fans.
Maddi plays football for the Adelaide Crows, whose AFLW season kicks off this weekend.
Hallie is the designer of the twins’ cult-like clothing line, Seeing Double. Her collections have been an instant sellout.
And together they are also social media influencers, whose funny skits and pithy insights have racked up millions of views across TikTok and Instagram.
“I feel like my true passion growing up was making videos with Hallie and my older sister Casey and playing footy, so it’s pretty crazy that that’s what my life is now,” says Maddi, a ball-winning midfielder who is in her sixth season with the Crows.
“And I just always loved clothes and I’d be very excited opening up my Christmas present – Maddi would have something like Spider-Man and I’d have new little high-heeled shoes and I’d be so excited. It’s always been a passion of mine, self-expression through clothing,” adds Hallie, who taught herself how to sew on her nanna Joan’s old sewing machine during Covid.
“We were always going to be who we were going to be.”
It’s proving to be a landmark year for the 24-year-old twins, who burst on to Instagram and TikTok during Covid with ad libbed skits and fun insights into their unique connection.
Maddi, who was drafted from West Adelaide as an 18-year-old back in 2019, is stepping up to a crucial year with the new-look Crows, after the retirement of legend Chelsea Randall and departure of midfield superstar Anne Hatchard to the Gold Coast Suns.
Off the field, the twins’ clothing business, Seeing Double, is dramatically ramping up production, outsourcing its manufacturing overseas to cope with the ever-growing demand that sees its hoodies, T-shirts and tops sell out.
“We can really widen the range now,” says the label’s self-taught designer and creator Hallie, who, until now, had personally sewn every item that was sold on an old, heavy-duty cover-stitch sewing machine and overlocker.
And the twins’ huge social media spotlight – they have 330,000 followers on TikTok, double the Crows’ 165,000 – is drawing in big-name brands such as Peters ice cream, Doritos and Maybelline.
Earlier this year, the twins, who have a mind-boggling 77.5 million likes on TikTok, were the faces of a national campaign for Boost Juice that blasted their picture across every outlet around the country and on billboards in capital cities.
And they also starred in a fancy Bridgerton-style video shoot with drag artist and reality TV star Courtney Act for online dating app Tinder.
“This year has just been huge already, like it’s been absolutely ginormous,” says Hallie, who trod the red carpet with her sister and Hollywood stars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi after being invited to the VIP premiere of Wuthering Heights in Sydney earlier this year.
“It’s been so cool.”
The twins are sitting in the airy, light-filled space of their brand new Somerton Park base, which they moved into earlier this year after their social media capers and business dealings outgrew their mum’s home down the road.
The swanky upper-floor warehouse unit has a suite of sculpted bouclé couches – a freebie from a furniture supplier, which is a common perk for influencers – and a wall of dress-up shoes.
A huge portrait of the twins dressed identically in purple suits and slicked-back hair from their Boost Juice campaign shoot is proudly waiting to be hung.
Behind a curtain are shelves of stock for Seeing Double, which has been an online-only clothing store but this year is moving on to the shop floor at My Dead Grandpa, a popular vintage marketplace in the city.
It all reflects the twins’ viral social media success, which is attracting advertising deals for makeup, Drumstick ice creams, shredded cheese, corn chips, yoghurt – and even laxatives.
“It’s funny because we could honestly make a skit of anything and I think that’s the fun of it all,” says Maddi.
“I think the thing is not being embarrassed and just being like ‘yep, we’ll sell laxatives’.”
A quick flick through the twins’ TikTok page reveals why they are cashing in.
One post – where Hallie and Maddi hosted a dress-up party in impressive costumes of cartoon villains Megamind and Henry J. Waternoose but nobody showed up – has been viewed 23.2 million times and has 11,000 comments from all over the world.
All together, the page has 77.5 million likes. On Instagram, they have another 46,300 followers.
Their funny, relatable skits bring to life everyday characters such as footy mums, fitness instructors, tradies, couples in relationships – and themselves.
They also take viewers into their lives and unique twin connection.
“I think what we have is very niche, there’s not many twin creators,” says Hallie.
“We’ve always been inseparable. When we speak, it honestly makes no sense. It’s like two people talking jibberish … like, it is one mind. Or we’ll be acting ad lib and both come up with the same thing at the same time.”
Hallie says she has even talked in her sleep to Maddi.
“Our friends would have sleepovers and sleep on the floor in between our beds and I would wake up and say ‘Maddi, what do you want in your pizza’ and she’d be, like, ‘pepperoni’ and we were fully asleep,” she remembers.
“It was like something out of The Conjuring,” laughs Maddi.
That special link between the twins – who have brand-new, matching wrist tattoos of the eyes that feature in their Seeing Double collections – even extends to injuries that Maddi receives on the footy field.
“I’ll play a game and my collarbone will be sore and then Hallie, the next day, she’ll be like ‘oh, my collarbone is sore’,” Maddi says.
“It’s actually so weird.”
Born just one minute apart, the twins – with their long brown hair and matching smiles – are virtually mirror images of each other. Their voices even sound the same.
“We’re not identical,” says Hallie, who is 1cm shorter than her twin.
“But I think mum’s got that wrong because we look exactly the same. I think we should get (a DNA test) … we could do something (on social media) with that.”
While they share their busy workplace, Hallie and Maddi – who slept in the same bedroom until they were 16 – are living separately for the first time.
At just 24, Maddi has bought her first home in Kidman Park, a 10-minute drive from Adelaide’s West Lakes football headquarters, and lives there with housemate and Crows teammate Sarah Goodwin.
Hallie is still with their “loud, outgoing, crazy” fitness instructor mum Jo in the family home.
The twins say the new living arrangement has been good for business.
“It’s been really good for our relationship to have some time apart,” says Hallie.
“We were living together and working together and always coming up with ideas, we never switched off.
“Now when we come together, it’s very creative – it’s a mind flayer of ideas. We have a bit more in the tank.”
That creative journey started during Covid, when newly signed Crow Maddi suggested the twins put their homemade videos online – and they blew up.
At the same time, a “bored” Hallie started to teach herself how to sew. Impressed friends urged her to sell her finished products online – and that launched Seeing Double.
Those online ventures – launched on a whim – were suddenly overnight successes.
The clothing line quickly sold out and the twins’ TikTok account amassed 100,000 followers in just a few short months.
For the teenage Maddi, who was desperately trying to break into the Crows’ AFLW team, the mental breaks from intense footy training proved to be a godsend.
“When we started making videos, I was like ‘this is exactly what I need to just take my mind off of football and be creative, have an outlet, have balance’,” she says.
“Once we started my videos, honestly I think I’ve been in the team ever since. It showed how much I needed something else because I think I was just getting so stressed about performing and thinking about it all the time.
“So I think that was a huge part of my journey as a footballer.”
With the online fame came attention from fans. The twins soon became recognised in public.
“We would be at Marion and people would just start looking at us. That was the moment when we were like ‘we have people actually watch this series of videos’,” says Maddi.
“They were quoting our videos, which was just crazy,” adds Hallie.
“When people do come up, we’ve never had a bad experience, everyone is really lovely and that’s testament that what we put out there is so positive.”
The No. 17 is a special and recurring theme for the twins. Maddi wears it proudly on the back of her Crows guernsey. It’s on several Seeing Double pieces, including an American football-style long-sleeve top in Hallie’s latest collection. And it’s the number that their dad, Steve, wore during his 300-game career with Morphett Vale Football Club, where he is now a legendary life member.
“Dad was a bit of a hero there,” says footy-obsessed Maddi, who spent her childhood cheering him on from the sidelines with Hallie and their older sister Casey, now a DJ and singer, who lives in Byron Bay.
“We’d go to all his games and I just absolutely loved it. I just wanted to kick the footy at quarter time and half time. I just loved being around it and I was honestly just obsessed with footy and obsessed with the Crows.”
Today, their dad is the one watching his daughters from the sidelines – and wildly cheering for their successes.
“Pure joy is the feeling I get when I think about Hallie and Maddi chasing their dreams and goals,” he says.
“The energy they create is one born out of love for each other and striving to be better at whatever they set their minds to. They have achieved great things both individually and as a team that is for sure.
“I think the key elements for success for both of them has been hard work, a pure sense of fun and being comfortable to be themselves. Being themselves – well, that’s the best bit!”
Maddi stoked her love of footy atParinga Park Primary School, where she was allowed to play on the boys’ team until she turned 12, when she ran out of options for girls and was forced to give it up.
Maddi channelled her sporting talents into cricket, making state and national junior squads. She also joined Hallie in the volleyball program at Brighton Secondary School. But those sports failed to fill the void left by footy
When the SANFL launched its women’s league in 2017, a delighted Maddi lined up for West Adelaide. Two years later, she was drafted to the Crows.
This AFLW season heralds a new era for the Crows, with former West Coast and Gold Coast footballer Ryan Davis taking up the reins after dual premiership-winning coach Matthew Clarke moved on to Glenelg in the SANFL.
Davis rates Maddi’s “great kick” and says her “ability to extend the play” from defence into offence has been a highlight this season”.
Maddi, fresh from a career-best season last year, when she averaged 19.7 disposals, believes 37-year-old Davis’s “fresh ideas” have been good for the new-look team – and she’s pumped about becoming one of its leaders.
“(Ryan) has said to me I have got good connection with everyone, I’m quite a bubbly person and I can really set the standard for the team and be someone people want to follow,” says Maddi, who has made cameos on the Crows AFL and AFLW social media sites with star forward Josh Rachele.
“It’s exciting because there’s obviously so many new players and new staff and it almost feels like you’re in a complete different club.
“Ryan’s really just embraced everyone for who they are. He really cares, you can tell that he wants to know you, what you had for breakfast, your parents and your family and your hobbies and stuff.
“He’s got nicknames for everyone. He calls me Boost Juice because of the Boost Juice campaign. I think it’s cool, he’s got great banter and can joke around but he’s a real hard edge and has a competitive nature so it really does make you want to fight for him on the field.”
As Maddi laces up her boots for the AFLW Crows’ season-opener against the Sydney Swans at Unley Oval on Sunday, high-heeled Hallie will be cheering her on – “one of my favourite things to do so I can’t wait” – and maybe feeling every crunch and sore collarbone.