Design Anatomy

Designing for the Senses: Sarah Ellison on Timeless Trends and Creative Innovation

• Bree Banfield and Lauren Li • Season 1 • Episode 7

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 57:47

Renowned designer Sarah Ellison joins us to uncover the vibrant tapestry of her career, from her early experiences at Real Living to the exciting launch of her new venture, Sarah Ellison Creative. With a unique blend of humour and insight, Sarah discusses the transformative influence of social media on the magazine industry and shares her intuitive approach to anticipating design trends, likening it to the data-driven precision of AI. Her background in fashion and publishing has not only honed her trend-spotting skills but also sparked her passion to explore new creative realms beyond her successful furniture business Ellison Studios

Sarah offers a captivating glimpse into her creative process, emphasizing the importance of designing spaces that engage all the senses. From navigating the challenges of creating personal designs to filling market gaps with her distinct aesthetic, Sarah's journey is a testament to innovation and authenticity in the design world. Her philosophy, "designed for the senses," is rooted in the creation of immersive spaces that evoke emotion and experience. Listeners will be inspired by her stories of balancing professional aspirations with personal life.

As we explore the concept of timelessness in design, Sarah reflects on the cyclic nature of trends and the resurgence of styles from past eras. The conversation touches on how quality craftsmanship and simplicity can withstand the test of time, providing insights into making affordable yet stylish updates to interior spaces. We also delve into the evolution of aesthetics like the Scandi style, and the nuanced role of colours such as Pink and Grey. Join us for an enriching discussion that emphasizes the significance of context and personal style, while celebrating the artistry of design that resonates through every era.

We hoped you enjoyed this episode & if you want to keep an eye out on what Sarah is up to next, please follow along at Sarah Ellison Creative on Instagram or her website Sarah Ellison Creative 

Bree is now offering a 90-minute online design consult to help you tackle key challenges like colour selection, furniture curation, layout, and styling. Get tailored one-on-one advice and a detailed follow-up report with actionable recommendations—all without a full-service commitment. 

Bookings now open -  Book now

Join Lauren online for a workshop to help break down pricing & fees for 2026! You'll learn: 

  • What has worked for Lauren over the past year
  • What hasn’t worked, and what she has changed
  • The exact fee structure Lauren now uses across all projects

For more info see below

The Pricing Shift: How I Structure My Fees in 2026.

Exploring Interior Design Trends and Creativity

Speaker 1

Welcome to Design Anatomy, the interior design podcast hosted by friends and fellow designers. Me, laurenL Lee.

Speaker 2

And me, Bre Banfield, with some amazing guest appearances along the way.

Speaker 1

We're here to break down everything from current trends to timeless style, With a shared passion for joyful colour-filled and lived-in spaces.

Speaker 2

We're excited to share our insights and inspiration with you. We're excited to share our insights and inspiration with you. Welcome to this episode as Lauren and I talk to Sarah Ellison about her career journey, experiences at Real Living and the evolution of design in the magazine industry. We also explore the impact of social media on traditional media, Sarah's amazing creative process and her new venture, Sarah Ellison Creative.

Speaker 1

This conversation delves into the importance of designing for the senses, finding inspiration and balancing work with creativity, all while reflecting on the nostalgia of past design eras and the quest for timelessness in design, which is a quest I'm always on. I absolutely loved talking with Sarah. She is just someone I have admired for a long time. So before we dive in, I just wanted to let you know that my style studies course is still open and we are helping you create your own dream home in that course. We're also offering retreats this year 2025. So if you'd like a bit of information, there is just a little link in the style in the show notes, or you can just join my style studies blog on Substack so fun.

Speaker 2

And if you want to sign up for more information from Bree Banfield, we'll be sending out snippets about trends and information on our short courses that we'll be running and our design edit pre-selected furniture collections that will help you decorate your home without having to spend a small fortune.

Speaker 1

Gorgeous. Love that, love that for everyone. All right, Bree, shall we dive on in? Let's chat, let's chat. Welcome everybody to another episode of Design Anatomy. We're really excited to be talking to Sarah Ellison today. Brie and I have been fans for a long time, so we're going to really enjoy this discussion. So, just before we start, I just wanted to show our respect for the Wurundjeri Roy people. They're the OG custodians of this unceded land and its waters, which is where we shop, where we create and where we call home and, of course, where we're working right now. So let's get into this discussion. Sarah, I don't know if you remember, but I met you years ago. I do remember. I remember, do you? Yeah, I met you at your friend's house, yeah, yeah, I totally remember.

Speaker 1

It was so random because I was working full time at it was actually a fashion brand and I was the in-house retail designer. So we were opening up stores all around Australia and anyway, sort of, I guess, as a favour to one of the guys working in the shop fitting business. He had this little cottage in Fitzroy which was so charming and cute, wasn't it? But they couldn't figure out the layout, yeah.

Speaker 1

And so I went in one day after work and presented the ideas to them and they said oh, is it okay if our friend sits in? I was like, oh, okay, and I don't think it was. Until afterwards I realised oh, I think I, yeah, I think I, oh, okay, and I don't think it was. Until afterwards I realised oh, I think I, yeah, I think I know who that is, that's Sarah Ellison. And of course I knew you from.

Speaker 3

Real Living. I feel like I might have just started. I feel like I might have just started at Real Living, though I feel like that was like the first year or two maybe. And yeah, such a random meeting.

Speaker 2

I remember. I try not to remember.

Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2

I feel like I don't know if we have actually ever met Sarah.

Speaker 3

We haven't. We haven't met no.

Speaker 2

Yeah, isn't it? We haven't? Sometimes you sort of go have we met before? Yeah, I guess it was possible. So I used to go up with Godfrey Hurst and do presentations to all the editors at the different magazines of like you know what was new with products and um that sort of things. That's possible. You might have been in one of those meetings at some time or other, but I don't think we've ever kind of I would remember.

Speaker 3

I remember everything. I'm like an elephant you're good. I don't um. When I was at real living, I was rarely in the office, I was never there okay, I missed a lot of stuff. Yeah, doing stuff shooting collecting totally yeah we did make sense. I literally was shooting every week sometimes, you know, so I was always. If I had to sort of pull something together, I would do it from home, because it's just too distracting being in the office.

Speaker 2

Yeah, no, I totally get that yeah. There'd be so much going on in the office too.

Speaker 3

Yeah, and I'm not really an office kind of person.

Speaker 2

Fair. I think a lot of creatives aren't, or they need that flexibility to be able to work in different places.

Speaker 1

I think a lot of creatives aren't office people, but then somehow we find ourselves sitting at a desk all day and we're like, how did?

Speaker 2

I get here.

Speaker 1

Like you know, I would love to know a little bit about your role at Real Living. So, it sounds like really fun.

Speaker 3

It was fun. It was the really really fun, memorable part of my career. I only have the best memories, although at the time I think it was pretty. It's pretty stressful, but I only look back with love and you know I just enjoyed it. It was a really happy time. But you know, I was a stylist essentially was a really happy time, um, but you know I was a stylist essentially and so that was just basically just doing a lot of photo shoots. You know that magazine was very photo shoot heavy, um, and we I forget how many shoots. We would do an issue, but I think I would plan it so that I had a shoot every second week sometimes.

Speaker 2

Um, yeah, so.

Speaker 3

I'd do a week of planning and then a week of shooting. And a week of planning, a week of shooting.

Speaker 3

But you know covers were super important.

Speaker 3

That was probably the biggest focus was making sure that when we do a shoot, get a cover out of it.

Speaker 3

So whether it was a house shoot or a set up in the studio or whatever we were doing, it was like, let's have a look and see if there's a cover option there. I was like, let's have a look and see if there's a cover option there. But then eventually we sort of realised that a lot of the covers were better if they were very controlled and we could do them in the studio. So I think one of the when I was there, an art director had arrived who had come from a fashion magazine. So it was a bit of a turning point about a year in where this art director, who I think she'd come from Carpus Bizarro or something like that, I can't remember, but she really brought a fashion edge in and we were able to start kind of using models and pulling really good fashion and kind of doing that thing where you're doing your room set but then you're also, you know, inspired by fashion in the same shoot as well.

Speaker 3

So it was an exciting time, yeah, so are we an exciting time?

Speaker 1

Yeah, so are we talking about 2015, 16, 17 or? I think I started there in 2011.

Speaker 3

Oh right, so yeah, 2011. So it was a bit of a golden age in the mags still as well. It was before, I mean, social media arrived in 2011, but it kind of didn't really take off. Maybe what 2014-15? As a kind of real tool for media brands. So yeah, it was, it was a good time and Real.

Speaker 3

Living was doing really well as well. A lot of magazines started suffering a little through that period, but we were doing very, very well and I think it was that real price pointed thing where you're showing people. I mean, look, honestly, if you think about it, it's kind of like the first it's it was.

Speaker 1

It was instagram before instagram yeah, you know it's giving the people what they want, yeah, and having the person on the front cover exactly it's very relatable.

Speaker 3

You're giving people what they want. You're giving ideas. People can take something away from it. It was clever in that respect.

Speaker 2

Well, real Living really became known, as, I guess, pushing the boundaries on that cover, like you said, moving to more of a studio style look, and then bringing in a person who wasn't necessarily the homeowner, so you kind of go from that cover that's quite traditional, which is a home with a homeowner or the dog or whatever, to having almost like a model, but still relatable, like you kept the model not too crazy.

Speaker 2

Fashion, fashion model. It was always sort of a relatable woman, yeah, and then the fashion element adding into sort of I guess they became quite graphic covers is the way I would put it and then really really became known for that, didn't it like that was?

Speaker 3

yeah yeah that was kind of the well it is that thing, it's grabbing attention on the stands you know, and then we had this wall in Deb's office and it was every single cover that we'd ever done what the other teams had done before me as well.

Speaker 3

And it was almost like we could kind of we knew which ones were good sellers. I think we might've had you know which ones were the best sellers and we knew what worked. And so after sort of 500 covers or whatever it was that's probably not that many, actually I'm exaggerating but after a couple of hundred covers go, okay, I can see a pattern here and I can see what's working and I can see what grabs people's attention. So I was just always finding that line between make it relatable make it colorful.

Speaker 3

What's the color people are into at the moment? What kind of woman do they want to see? She can't be too cool, she can't be too fashion, but she also can't be too relatable and have a dog and you know, so it was like a very fine line that we had to find and, to be honest, I felt like, up until the time I had left, I'd literally only just gotten to the point where I was like I think I've cracked. You know, I finally think I've cracked it.

Speaker 2

It always happens right, and then it's like, damn, now I gotta move on exactly, exactly, yeah, that was a good time I was actually oh, it looks so much fun.

Speaker 1

It did look like you got a sense of fun from the magazine as well, I think, like it was a bit more playful, it wasn't so serious, but um yeah, I just had a really sad thought, though, because imagine having to pull down that wall of all the covers, because when real living closed down. When was that? A few years ago now? I was actually really sad it was only a couple of years ago.

Speaker 1

Yeah, Real Living was just like such a fun, easy go-to, like you'd find all these new supplies in there it was just like a really nice read and I think it was you know, bringing in those Australian products and everything like that. So it's changed a lot in a few years hasn't it?

Speaker 3

It's a shame. It's a shame. I think there's a lot of those brands, the magazine brands you know, like Inside Out and everything that I just didn't manage to catch on to the technology early enough and I remember being there and then, trying, like you know, acp or Bauer at the time we're trying so hard.

Speaker 3

What's the technology? What do we need to do? We had this app at one stage. That was like I don't know if anyone ever used it, but it was a barcode on a page and you could scan the barcode and it would open up to a video of the photo shoot wow, that's cool that's a shame, maybe too early yeah, good concept.

Speaker 3

It was called viewer. No one ever used it, but they spent heaps of money on it. You, know, it just didn't take off, but trying to. It was just such a pivotal time in media where everyone's like what's the thing? Where do we direct ourselves? None of us knew instagram would turn into what it was and we should have just probably focused all of our attention into that. But it was. It was a bit of an unknown.

Technology and Trends in Design

Speaker 2

That's right. I mean, obviously, that the the rise of social media really changed it yet again. What, what was the thing to do? But I remember back then, um, there were a couple of really cool online magazines like European ones. There was one that I loved, which for some reason, didn't kind of take off, and maybe again, it was kind of like social media really just took over. But it was just so, you know, on the iPad. But it was so well integrated that you could just like click on things and it would take you to a video or it would take you to the product, and I loved it so much and then it just sort of stopped happening.

Speaker 2

I was subscribing to it, but I feel like nobody's quite nailed that integration. Like, like you said, actually, I noticed today, um, I read most of my mags on my iPad now I don't buy a lot of physical ones but when I was doing that, I noticed there's like a little QR code on an ad and I thought that's actually super clever, because you know, like, if you see code on an ad, and I thought that's actually super clever because you know, like, if you see an ad for something, you go, oh, that's cool, and you google it. So instead, if you're reading the mag, you just pick your phone up and you use the QR code and go straight to the website. So I thought, oh, people should be doing that a lot more. Anyway, I digress, but that technology thing is um has become so important in the, I guess, the livelihood of any kind of publication now hasn't it?

Speaker 3

Yeah, we're also addicted to that scroll as well. And I think that that is a bit of a problem, because it stops you from consuming other things.

Speaker 2

You know I find myself.

Speaker 3

I'm just stop. You know, I'm not intentionally looking for anything, I'm just scrolling yeah they've all addicted us. That's the day away from it.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's not an accident.

Speaker 1

No they're clever but I think it's interesting because, you know, maybe real living and all magazines, really no one had a crystal ball in that sense to know where to put their energy to. You know, carry on with the technology, but I think in a trends way and stylistically, you know, sarah, you really do have that ability to be able to somehow pinpoint what the next thing is, just on the edge of just when we're all catching on to it. And you know, looking at real living I had, I don't know, can you speak on that a little bit Like, how do you do that?

Speaker 3

I don't know the answer. No, I don't know, it's definitely not something I'm trying to do. You know I'm not trying to go. What is the exact thing that? You know I'm not really trying.

Speaker 3

It's more of an innate kind of thing, when I go into sort of a creative process and then something just pops out the other end and it happens to be right where it needs to be. But saying that, I think, having a background in fashion, like I started in fashion, I'd studied fashion, I was very interested in being a fashion designer and you know, fashion is of the moment, isn't it? It's that very much. So I think my mind works in that way anyway. And then those years in magazines where you're hunting, you were constantly hunting for the thing. What's the next thing? You're always.

Speaker 3

You know you're meeting all this. You're going to all the shops, you're going through all the websites, you're just constantly pouring through so much interior data, let's call it. You're like a little mini computer that sort of is taking all of this stuff in and then eventually you're kind of spinning something out and it happens just to be the right thing, a bit like an AI in a way. You know it's sort of. You take it all in and you scan the data and then you go into some kind of creative process and then at the end you sort of are creating something that sits somewhere where it inspires people. But sometimes with that my problem is I can also go too far. I can be too ahead and then it has no context, so no one gets it.

Speaker 3

So that has been a little bit of a problem, is like that's really cool and I've had my peers and colleagues. That's very cool, sarah and we're sharing five years' time. Everyone's going to love that. Right now no one's going to get it. So it is very much kind of pulling everything in, sitting with it and then making sure it has sort of a commercial context, but also relatable. It's relatable to people and I do like that. Personally, I get a lot of enjoyment out of creating things that inspire people and that, I mean, I guess in some ways it's taking all of those high-end trends and pushing them into a place that makes them understandable for, kind of, the average person, the average consumer.

Speaker 2

So Sarah, we love to check in with our guests and ask what have you been up to lately?

Speaker 3

So I am starting a new business. I started a new business, Sarah Ellison Creative, which kind of allows me the space to step away from Ellison Studios, which is obviously my commercial furniture business, and just sort of focus in on a lot of collaborations that I've been really wanting to do outside of Ellison Studios. I want to work on a bunch of things that sort of outside of furniture and home. I would like to go into some more architectural kind of collaborations and design collaborations.

Speaker 1

And I also just want to kind of yeah, it's exciting.

Creative Design Process and Inspiration

Speaker 3

I also want. There's a few things in the works which I can't really talk about, but I just wanted to open myself up as a creative. Yeah, a lot of opportunities, and I guess I just wanted to also elevate my style a little and go into a different zone creatively, um, so sort of made the decision to you know, start my own business as Sarah Ellison and, um, just leave myself open to creative opportunities.

Speaker 3

it doesn't even have to be interiors, I mean, I love consulting and branding, and there's a whole bunch of things that I really want to do as myself, without the sort of rigours of a whole business and a team and things like that. Oh, that sounds super exciting.

Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah, yeah, tell us about that and I want to work on a bunch of collaborations, probably to some degree in the house. And, yeah, just design a beautiful home for me and my son and design all the things in it. That would be great. I see so many gaps still in the market, which is really funny. Like you think that everything already exists, but I'm like I want an amazing tap but I can't find the tap that I want.

Speaker 1

I would love to see a tap by.

Speaker 3

Sarah Ellison, I already want to buy it.

Speaker 1

Thank you first customer.

Speaker 2

Yay, thank you great oh, that's exciting and how old's your son Sarah, he's 10 oh that's a cool age is he appreciative of?

Speaker 3

design no, no, doesn't care, you should see his room. It's so embarrassing so funny yeah, like I'm, I'm just like god mate, like, yeah, just he's into rugby and he's into just into boy stuff and youtube and gaming and like all of these things that I'm like no, but anyway my little lesson, to not be so precious about everything it's hard as a designer, isn't it?

Speaker 2

it is exciting.

Speaker 1

But you know, when it comes to your own house, I get a bit paralyzed, because I think you know it's almost like we just know too much. We know there's so many options out there you can design for clients, but when it comes to your own? Sometimes do you find that too.

Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah, like I'm trying to already think about the styles that I'm gonna. You know I have an aesthetic but I that I'll probably end up going with. But in my mind at the moment when I'm thinking about, do I go more layered and more decorative, and how crazy am I going to go with the tiles, and how much am I going to lean into these big gestural editorial moments or you know like, or is it just a home for me and my son and I should be more humble and think long term, like. There's so many things going through my mind at the moment.

Speaker 1

Yeah, you already designed a tile range which was such a huge big hit, like that was just the.

Speaker 2

I loved that. I was so excited when that came out yeah, I'm still available.

Speaker 3

Yeah yeah I want to do more tiles for sure. Love to do more tiles wallpapers you know, everything, everything.

Speaker 2

Give me all the things I know, I feel like this is the thing it's, like maybe there's nothing you can't do, because I feel like you've touched on so many different elements of design and really done all of them quite well, I would say Thank you.

Speaker 2

When you talked about your aesthetic before. How would you actually describe it Like? I always find I guess I kind of know what mine is now, but I feel like it's taken me a while to get to the point where I can actually say this is my aesthetic. Do you sort of have that feeling in your head like how you? How you would actually kind of say, well, this is this is what I do, like do you have the words for it?

Speaker 3

well, it's taken me a while to to work out how to describe it. You know it's in years of I don't know. You just do it right, it's an innate thing and you just do it in a turn. But as you get older you start to look back and go okay, I get it. There's a very clear mistake there, um, but for me it's um, and you know this is kind of my tagline in my new business. It's designed for the senses.

Speaker 3

So the way that I try and approach a space or a design or anything I'm doing creatively is kind of experiential, and how does that feel? I'm a very sensitive person, so I'm funny about the way things feel, the way things are when you touch them. The way a marble is when you run your hand across it, the shininess and the coolness of a chrome, the way a room smells when you walk into it, the music. It's a sensory experience and I feel like I design in that way.

Speaker 1

I love that Love it. Yeah, yeah, it's the best way. I've that Love it yeah. Yeah, the best way I've found to describe it. Well, I think it's almost. Other people want to put a label on your aesthetic. Like you're just going doing your thing, but it's like people just really want to find the words for that, don't they? Yeah, yeah, I have loved your newsletter that you've been sending.

Speaker 3

Thank you, thank you, and it's great, because you just put that stuff out there and you're like does anyone get this? I don't know.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's beautiful, just a little, you know a whole, like nice, like little email of inspiration, and just to get a feel for sort of where you're heading and what you, what's inspiring you. I'm curious, though when you're talking about your design process and taking in all of that inspiration, how do you organize it? Is it Pinterest boards, is it printing out, sticking on a wall? Is it Instagram saved folders or just all of the above?

Speaker 3

It's, everything's, everything, gosh, it's, it's. I love something real other than a screen thing. I realized you know I've got, I've got all the saves in all the files, and don't you hate that thing where you just literally can't remember where you've saved that thing that you know you've all the time and I'm like it's so important I'm going to screenshot it.

Speaker 1

and then I've got a photo with five million screenshots in it. Screenshots Me too. Totally.

Speaker 3

We're all the same. We're all the same. What I have realized is I love the. I love. My favorite thing to do is to go into shops, whether it's travel and you're in some beautiful shop in another country, which is amazing, but honestly, just going to doing a little trip to Sydney and going into all the showrooms, all the hotels, and my favorite thing is going into, like luxury fashion stores like Bottega, veneta or Prada or whoever, yeah, and just being around and just letting my mind wander in kind of like more of a physical sense, as opposed to sitting there on a screen and doing a mood board.

Speaker 3

I think you need all of it. It's like you gather all the files, you put together your schemes and your storyboards, but then alongside that, it needs to be something physical. For me, sometimes I can just be going for a walk, totally. I wrote down a few notes with this podcast, and then I went for a walk and all my best things. I was going to talk about were on my walk, you know, it's like I need that body movement.

Speaker 2

My other thing is in the shower. I think someone needs to design something, I don't know. Or maybe I just need like a whiteboard marker in my shower, because I feel like I come up with the best ideas when I'm in the shower or I'm like processing stuff and I go yes, that's it. But then by the time I get out of the shower and get dry and get dressed and whatever I go. What was that?

Speaker 1

Oh, no, yeah, totally yeah, I know.

Speaker 2

But yeah, well, I feel like that's definitely. I notice a lot of creatives do this, and I don't know if you do too, lauren. It's that thing of like we're always really working so we can do all that deliberate gathering of things, but it's when you're least expecting it, out on a walk or I don't know, driving. Sometimes I'll be driving and I'll see, like I don't know, the side of a truck or a car, or there's just something like the color combination or the form that just triggers something and I go, that's the resolve for whatever this is, this joinery or this colour scheme, that's it.

Speaker 2

That's what I'm going to do. So it's kind of you have to make sure that you're not just at the desk and scrolling and looking at it all digitally because you'll kind of miss out on those other parts of inspiration. Do you do the same, Lauren?

Speaker 1

Well, I think it's. You know what you're saying, sarah. You know you're designing for the senses, so that means we need to get out of this in front of the screen and we need to you know go on a walk and you know you're soaking up all of the sounds.

Speaker 1

Maybe I'm listening to a podcast, though yeah, I'm listening to the birds, no, I'm not. I'm listening to a podcast and you know the smells and all of those things that you, you know you're going in to experience a store. You know a retail store, you know, as you said, a hotel, and they're the things you do when you travel and you don't have to travel far.

Speaker 2

No true.

Speaker 1

But you do need to get out from in front of the desk, and that's something I really struggle with because, to be honest with you, even sometimes going for a walk, I'm like, oh my god, I've got.

Speaker 2

I've just got to get this work done and then the next thing you know, oh my gosh, the whole day is gone anyway.

Speaker 3

So that's, yeah, it's really important isn't it.

Speaker 3

No, it's a hard balance. It's such a hard. Yeah, it's a hard balance, I. But I have realized, you know, there was a period where I was sitting at my desk all day, every day, and I was overwhelmed. Actually, if I really think about it, I was very overwhelmed because I just wasn't giving myself that space to kind of I mean it's flow. Essentially, you're creating a flow, you know, and I realized that the best way I work is if I'm at my desk three to four days a week, no more.

Speaker 1

Okay, and the other days.

Speaker 3

Give yourself space, because that frees up your mind to be more efficient on the other days you know.

Speaker 2

So it's balanced. I mean, we're getting into, like you know, business running, but I'm just curious on this one question. We'll leave it. But do you schedule that or do you just organically go?

Speaker 3

oh, today's the day I'm not going to go to the desk. I am trying to. I'm trying to make it more scheduled At the moment, it's a bit of a weird one because I'm doing it's a whole new phase for me. It's a whole new business and I've been setting up the website and doing all that sort of stuff, so there's definitely periods where I am at my desk Fridays a week.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of that sort of work, admin stuff, yeah.

Speaker 3

Yeah, but working towards Fridays just don't work Fridays, yeah, still always thinking about it, though it's like you're not. It's not that you're not working. It's all still going on, You're just not doing it at your desk, just not at the desk. You can't switch it off right?

Speaker 1

No, we were talking about you know how can we name your style. But, um, I was having such a wonderful walk down memory lane because I am, uh, I wouldn't say a hoarder, but I do have some old collector, thank you. Yeah, I do have some, um, vintage let's just call them vintage real living magazines, and there were just a bunch of them that I've held onto because I've had a little tiny project snippet or something in there. But, oh my gosh, it was so fun looking back to those different eras and when you look back onto real living, are there some sort of styles that you're like, oh, that was such a whatever style. Do you sort of have eras that you kind of remember? Oh, gosh.

Speaker 3

Yeah, there's so many, but I loved seeing all of your. When you sent me those images, I was just like, oh, I actually sent them to Deb Pippi.

Speaker 1

I was like, deb, these are all really good, that's what I thought too I mean they were of a time and I suppose, like leading into that question, and it's something that Bree and I have sort of riffed over a few times is this idea of timelessness, because I think a lot of designers you know we love using that word oh, we create timeless interior.

Speaker 1

I'm like I don't know what that means, because I actually love design for our time and looking at all of those eras, I'm like it's just a joy to look at them and remember and we were so loving that Ant was on the wall or whatever it was in that moment of time and it felt so fun and it felt so fresh at the time. And obviously we're in a moment here where we're thinking what we're doing now is so fresh and I'm always liking something new and I think that's why I really like to read Real Living, because it was always showing something new. And if we're striving for timeless, are we stuck in a time and are we not looking outside? Are we just really doing the same thing? I don't know. What are your thoughts?

Design Trends and Timeless Style

Speaker 3

on timeless design. I think that timeless, for me, is probably more than anything about quality, you know, and it's about even if it's something reasonably trendy, let's say, if it's of high quality, if it's made by hand, if it's in a beautiful material, if it has clean lines, it won't date as much.

Speaker 2

That's how I see timeless um so sort of designed to last, rather than designed to throw away exactly yeah, nothing.

Speaker 3

I mean everything changes. Nothing stays in fashion forever. It's all so cyclic and things. What's funny actually is what? All the y2k fashion and 90s fashion that everybody's wearing now, which I thought would never come back into fashion, and everybody's wearing we're not everybody, the younger generation are wearing it. You would have thought anyone would ever wear that terrible fashion ever again. So it's cyclic, it always comes back. You know, we always thought the 80s and the torres sotsas and the Memphis stuff from the 1980s, which was, you know, when I was a kid, was so garish, so over the top, such a statement, and how much do I love that now, you know, I love it. So timeless. You know it's all cycles and it all comes back eventually.

Speaker 3

And I think if you wanted to really invest in something timeless, there's that saying. You know, the best design is the least design of all. So if you really want to buy something timeless, it's about picking something that's very clean, doesn't have, doesn't say too much. You know it's not boring necessarily, but it's just very clean lines, linear, don't put too much into it. I actually have a sofa that I bought in the early 2000s, very low, very long, I think it's a three meter long sofa, super thin, simple frame, very just square, and I can't throw it away. All I do is I get covers made for it and I use it as an outdoor sofa, you know, because it's such a good, simple design that I still love and I just don't have the heart to throw it away. So to me that is timeless.

Speaker 2

You know something you keep for a really long time. So when you look at that sofa, you don't, you don't sort of, you can't pinpoint I what era it was Like. Is that kind of yeah yeah?

Speaker 3

Yeah, I guess. Yeah, exactly, it could be 70s, it could be 80s, it's just a very simple, simple design. Yeah, transcendent. But I think what you can do is spend. If you want to buy into the trends or the styles of the time, I think you just do it and not spend too much money, you know. So it's not a big investment. Don't kind of, you know, spend all your money on something super trendy and in fashion. It's just like a checkered cushion. I've got some checkered cushions.

Speaker 2

I still love my checkered cushions, but they're easy things to change. That's very true.

Speaker 2

I feel like that's what you you know we often give that advice to as a general kind of thing, to um, to consumers, to add in, like bits of color even so that I guess we're not necessarily also encouraging people to kind of throw things out and start again, because that's not realistic, is it? And it a totally very sustainable. So I think, as someone who works in in trends, we're always thinking about you know how we inspire people just to rethink their existing spaces.

Speaker 2

I mean, you know, obviously working with Dulux, that we do encourage painting, but it is a really easy way to, I guess, add the color in as well as those small decor accents, so you can kind of I don't know be of the moment or yeah like in that era and I think this kind of leads into our some of our discussion points about the different eras that existed, and it's kind of exactly that there's like these kind of specific things that appeared in interiors zen, that sort of define those things like you said before Lauren, the, um, the antlers, it was that whole thing right with antlers and or painting them as well, like they sort of started as the natural, but then they'd have like the, the colored, the colored antlers and, um, yeah that was sort of everywhere, weren't they?

Speaker 2

I can't yeah, was that antlers and 2000s, wasn't it yeah?

Speaker 3

well antlers was like it was just before I started at real living, so that must have been 20, 2008 onwards. For a few years, I worked in a homeware store and actually the, the woman that owned the store, used to go down to a venison farm and collect the antlers because they just fall off right they fall off, yeah but then they're a bit dirty and stuff, so she would put them in her bath with bleach and make them white. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1

Yeah, anyway, glad we passed that one Fluoro is a shocker as well.

Speaker 3

I don't know if that's ever going to be in fashion. You know if that's ever that's never going to be to fashion. You know if that's ever that's never gonna. Never say never, never say never.

Speaker 1

I know no, yes yeah, yeah, but flu did have a moment, didn't it? And millennial pink yes, yes, yeah, and I saw a cover that was yeah, it was just gray light gray sofa, millennial pink cushion, and I'm thinking that cover would have just sold like crazy back in the day and that lasted for so long.

Speaker 2

Um that pink and gray combination with like a little bit of black and white, I would say like it's the kind of accent and the pale timber. Wow, that lasted a long time didn't it? And then pink kind of evolved and pink has not really gone away. That millennial pink look. Really. Who knew that was going to stick around that long? I didn't, no.

Speaker 3

I know, and with a bit of rose gold.

Speaker 2

you know a bit of rose gold thrown in there as well. Oh, yes, the rose gold, yes.

Speaker 3

What's funny is that Real Living cover that you sent me Lauren, the pink and grey one, which is so cool.

Speaker 2

I love that With the model. So it's got the. It's kind of like a whitewash grey on the panelled wall behind.

Speaker 3

It's actually a wallpaper oh it's a wallpaper.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's a wallpaper yeah, but it looks very cool Panelled wallpaper.

Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah. It was funny, though, because I think that was, yeah, the beginning of sort of pink, millennial pink and we didn't know what to do with it then.

Speaker 2

You know it was like oh, pink girly French, so it was 2014,. That magazine cover June 2014.

Speaker 1

Oh yeah, yeah, we're going to show these up on YouTube as well, so if you wanted to jump, onto YouTube otherwise we will describe it for you for all of the podcast listeners.

Speaker 2

I kind of love the you know we've mentioned before about the real living covers and the fashion element and in this particular one the model has the sort of slight beehive updo which is blonde, she's got the black and white on and it's kind of a little bit, I would say kind of Bridget Bardot. Would you sort of say that sort of style? Yeah, it is that style.

Evolution of Design Trends

Speaker 3

And when I was looking yeah, I was looking back on it and thinking I knew, you know, we knew pink was in fashion, what do we do with pink? But I don't think we knew how to do it well in 2014. It was very a bit. Let's make it girly, let's make it French. It was a little bit cliché.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it was way more girly, wasn't it?

Speaker 3

Yes, yeah, whereas pink is great in a context of really contemporary. You know, like a Jenna Lyons apartment where it's a beautiful New York loft.

Speaker 2

It's painted grey, it's got all this amazing styling and then she's just got this pink sofa.

Speaker 3

Yes, I know I love that.

Speaker 2

You know it's better in that context, but I think it took us a little while to kind of realize that at that stage 100 and I feel like pink has now almost become such a staple that it can be a neutral. Yeah, well, just when I say a neutral, it's just a great backdrop for other color so, yeah, it's become a neutral, you know, not technically, but like in the way that it's being used it doesn't have to be like in the way that it's been used.

Speaker 2

It doesn't have to be like little pops of pink. It can be like a whole wall or a whole room, and then you actually build on top of that and layer it yeah.

Speaker 1

Love that, love that. There was another photo that I took from maybe it was a 2016 or 17 issue, and it was that scandy look, white painted floor, white walls, white artwork, grey sofa and then the sort of industrial sort of lighting, and that was. I mean, that was just such an amazing day. Yeah, that Scandi. Look, I think we're just coming through the other side of it now, but I mean, that was huge. It's just evolved right.

Speaker 2

Scandi hasn't gone anywhere, it's just. I mean, that's just evolved right. Scandi hasn't gone anywhere, it's just slightly it's just evolved.

Speaker 2

I would say Scandi now is way more textural, like you can see um, in the image you're talking about. The artwork has kind of texture to it and there's, oh, one of those hide rugs on the floor, but it's not, it's sort of not relying on that whereas I feel like Scandi now is much warmer in its sort of tactility I guess is a good way to put it like there's less sort of industrial cold elements in in the new version of of scandi.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I'd agree. I think that I think it still has a place. I really do. I'm just trying to find it. I can't have anything, but I think it still has a place. It's really just now. The new version of this is just more timber, warming things up.

Speaker 2

Yeah, you know.

Speaker 3

I feel like there's just a lot more warmth in what we're doing now. If you look at all of these images, it's all very cold. There's not much kind of timber or timber panelling, it's all kind of whites and brights. And now we're in much more of a warm zone, but white or white, it's never going to go away. Is it timeless?

Speaker 2

I don't know. I feel like I think when we've discussed timeless before, lauren, I've probably brought this up. I think it's a bit of a trap because if you think about, say, a white-gloss kitchen that feels dated at the moment, right, totally, I wouldn't say that's a timeless look, and it's almost because of the white that it's not so you can kind of fall into the trap of thinking something's timeless.

Speaker 2

But then, because everyone sort of starts doing it at that period and then it moves on to something else, you can look back and kind of date it and go that's when white kitchens were in. So it's interesting. I find it curious. I think that it's a staple, without question, but I think white evolves too like from the cool whites to what's much more popular now is those warmer kind of more nuanced, almost very pale neutrals, rather than like stark white yeah yeah, and what?

Speaker 1

is white, exactly like that's right, you know, swap out the gray sofa for a beige or a chocolate sofa as well. So yeah, as you said, you know, it's just swapping over to the warm. So let's see in another 10 years we'll be probably back in the cool.

Speaker 2

Let's just we've started to see um, we've started to see a little bit of bray coming back, and it's funny that, um, when I was talking about this with, like, obviously having to talk about trends, I was talking about this to a couple of other brands and they were agreeing with me saying, yep, we're seeing it. But the management and um, you know, like the people kind of making the decisions on what to spend and what to put out, they're all freaked out and I found it really funny that, um, everybody loved, everything was great, right, it was all loved. And now to suggest that grey is kind of re-emerging and I don't think it's going to be as big as it was, I think it's going to be as big as it was. I think it's just coming back more like an accent. But for the brand management to kind of go, no, no, we can't go back there, I'm like, well, we can't. That's just what's happening.

Speaker 2

That's the observation of the movement of the trend, but they just don't want to do it, so I think it didn't take a while before we got back to that.

Speaker 3

I see it, though, in a wall colour as opposed to a furniture, in a furniture colour. To me it feels dated. But as a version of white as a wall colour, like a beautiful warm grey that feels contemporary. When you were in Sydney, lauren, did you go into Joseph's beautiful store, studio Gardner?

Speaker 1

I did. I had the best time there. They actually turned all the lights off so I could take some nice photos. Oh wow, that was so nice in there and how gorgeous is grey as a beautiful backdrop.

Speaker 3

It's stunning Like it's painted grey and it's stunning with all the beautiful warm woods and the you know concrete and the you know aluminium-y, silvery kind of tones as well.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it's the combination of things that change it from feeling dated too, isn't it? Like you said, like grey but then with that warmth of the timber and the layering and the tactility, it doesn't feel as dated as you know just having a grey sofa in a white room.

Speaker 1

And just don't put a millennial pink cushion on the sofa.

Speaker 3

Or a rose gold industrial pendant Exposed bulb or a rose gold industrial pendant, Exposed bulb or those.

Speaker 2

I think another decor piece that really defined and kind of was used a little bit in the Scandi too with those kind of industrial letters and then they kind of evolved to having like the light bulbs in them as well?

Speaker 1

Yes, it's a freestanding one.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I think I had like one of those those. I don't even know where it came from, I can't even remember what letter it was in the end, but I must have bought it for a shoot and I thought it was the best thing ever they were.

Speaker 1

They were in the moment. I loved them.

Speaker 2

I know, circus that's what makes so silly think of the circus that lettering with the lights can. Can we talk?

Speaker 3

about industrial, then Because I really have industrial?

Speaker 2

What about at the time? And I realized why. Yeah.

Speaker 3

At the time. I don't know if I ever loved it At the time. I think I might have gone down the path. But now what I realize what it is is, it's just so out of context. You know, in Australia, maybe in Melbourne, in a cool bar that used to be an electricity substation, industrial works quite specific only in that one place. I'm not there at that bar. It works in lennox head at my local cafe. You know a subway tire with a black route and some you know bear pendant bulbs.

Speaker 1

All those wire ones.

Speaker 3

Oh, so bad.

Speaker 2

I hate it so much. Concrete benchtop. It actually kind of became the cafe aesthetic, didn't?

Speaker 1

it.

Speaker 2

Oh yes, All the cafes had to have the bulbs or all the ones with kind of the wire cage and that industrial look. It became like where the good coffee was exactly that's how you could tell. No, it's now I avoid it. Yes, you've looked like that. I'm like that's the bad coffee exactly? Yeah, no, I'm just looking at another photo here with the scandi, but the butterfly chair with the tan leather that was also like a real moment, wasn't it?

Speaker 3

yes, yeah, that was very kind of got added into the industrial sort of yeah, yeah, it's a soft version blend. Yeah, yeah, that's true, that's true. And it's got a letter as well, hasn't it that image? Yeah, they started.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and a fur.

Speaker 3

Oh, the mongolian furs she's got all the expensive yeah, it does.

Speaker 1

That image has all of the things, all of the yeah. And then there's one of a you, you know it must have been some sort of vintage locker, you know that kind of that vintage look, that industrial vintage look. And then they've got the subway tower with the black grout concrete floors. You know it was. Yeah, it was of that time, wasn't it? And I mean, I still think that space looks really cool.

Designing With Authenticity and Timelessness

Speaker 3

Yeah, that actually works. Still, that space and that styling's beautiful. I think that's what?

Speaker 2

for me, when I look at that shot, it still reads as a great shot because it's just really nicely styled, it's quite organic and it's not overly stylised, so it doesn't feel as dated as it could feel, I think, if the styling wasn't as good.

Speaker 1

To be honest, but also, as you say, Sarah, it's the context Like it does look like some sort of warehouse. It makes sense in a warehouse that doesn't really make sense in your little suburban everyday you know, house.

Speaker 3

Exactly, and I think that it's the same for anything really any style that doesn't Like when I see people building houses and designing houses up here that that have elements of too much kind of mediterranean or too much of a trying to be an italian villa or too much of any style overdone it becomes a bit pastiche and themey and I just I think that the knack is to take those elements and make them your own, you know, and make them fit the context of where you're living, what kind of building you're designing or has been designed for you.

Speaker 3

Um, otherwise, things date and I just it's not, it's not good, you know it. And I think your locale into perspective.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and I think that's what comes back to what you were saying about something being timeless as well. It has to make sense in the context and it has to have that integrity to it, you know for that image you know with the lockers to still make sense today, it still looks cool. Even though we've moved on from that aesthetic, I still can appreciate it Because it feels authentic, I think. Yes, that's the thing, isn't it? Yeah?

Speaker 2

Sarah, I feel like, because you've been involved in so many of these editorial styling moments and we've already talked about how real living was kind of leading the way do you feel like and we've talked about these kind of decor moments that are really stuck and made you know like a particular era do you feel like there was something that you did that kind of sparked that, like you know, say it was you put an angler on the cover or whatever? Was there something?

Speaker 2

that you can think of that sort of hadn't really been done, that you did, and then it kind of really took off. That's a good question not really.

Speaker 3

I feel like I what I really loved was when we did fashion, the, when the fashion in the interior were just and I look like I said before, I didn't get. I didn't get to this point, to almost the very end, but when the fashion and the interior are both equally as good as each other, that just made my heart sing. And there's probably only one shoot that I feel like I nailed that and it was when it was actually a bit more maximal. You know, the style was very layered. It was when I started doing printed, all printed outfits, but then I do a fully printed backdrop as well, you know, which is hilarious because actually completely opposite to what I'm doing now.

Speaker 3

But, um, as a design and as a concept, I just feel like that really worked, all of those layers and how everything just tied together and it was such a feast for the eyes um but context, once again, it was a real, it was a, it was a cover, it was a photo shoot and I wanted to draw people in and I wanted people to go oh, look at all the stuff and the thing and the outfit, and that's how I wanted people to respond to that. It's always a different approach isn't there.

Speaker 2

It was a different approach, so you're doing it in interior, it's different to creating a cover like there's a specific intent to a cover, right? Yeah, exactly, it's different to creating a cover like there's a specific intent to a cover, right? So, yeah, exactly it doesn't. But yeah, you get to kind of when I started doing my own stuff.

Speaker 3

What I realized was that I just had to be very true to myself because it was me and it was a reflection of me. And I really did struggle because I was coming out of magazines thinking, oh my gosh, what style am I gonna do? I'm always doing different styles, but what is my style?

Speaker 3

So I definitely had a bit of an identity crisis, leaving Real Living because I'd done so many different styles. So constantly I was like, but which one's mine? And I remember just walking down the beach with my little baby son at the time. We're at the beach and I was admiring the water and he was little and gorgeous and the Bronte rocks were at Bronte Beach and I was just like this is me, this is my life, and whatever I do needs to reflect that. So you know, it was very surf inspired. We spent all our time at the beach, all our time at the skate park. Blaise's dad was a skater and it was just the coastal colour palette. It was all of the things that I had grown up with as well. So I knew that I had to kind of bring it back to something really authentic, and that was my experience.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so I had meaning to you, right. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3

And then that's how you sort of held that aesthetic Exactly. You know, because you've got to draw from something. Like any project, you need a brief, and that was my brief I had to create for myself. Like any project, you need a brief and that was my brief. I had to create for myself. It's going to draw from my experience, nostalgia, what I love, what I know.

Speaker 1

So, yeah, and I think, that you know those designs are quite Australian, like it's quite. You know, if you've drawn from the beach and the culture, you end up with something that's really specific to a location, which is I love that. So are you talking about any particular pieces? Because I know that you had a wallpaper range before as well, which I loved back in the real living days. Was that sort of overlapping when you were at real living?

Speaker 3

I was at real living when I did that collection. It was actually when digital printing had kind of become quite big and it was easy to print short runs of things. You didn't have to go and design a collection of wallpapers and order thousands of rolls or thousands of metres, so we could do a metre at a time. But it actually sold really well. It actually still sells like 10 years more than 10 years later I still get royalties from that collection.

Speaker 2

Nice, that's passive income, I know.

Speaker 3

It's so funny, but I would love to do more wallpapers because I feel like, yeah, you know they're cool, but they need a refresh.

Speaker 2

Kind of one of our wrap-up points for you is like where are you going to go from here? So you've talked about Sarah Allison Creative and that you want to do collaborations. Is there a particular direction you want to go in, or are you still keeping it very, very open?

Speaker 3

Keeping it open at the moment.

Speaker 2

Do you want to put anything out?

Speaker 3

there.

Speaker 1

You know, invite it in.

Speaker 2

What collabs do you want to do.

Speaker 3

Yeah, totally. Oh, the collabs, I want them all. No, I need to be careful, I need to plan for my future and make sure I'd love a textiles collaboration actually that would be my next stage, I think just a really beautiful like don't you think there's still, even though there's so much textile out there, it's still not. Though there's so much textile out there, it's still not. There's beautiful, expensive fabrics and there's, you know, your lower and stuff, but there's not that high-end feeling that fits in the middle somewhere.

Speaker 3

You know, I feel like just a great color palette in an awesome linen and a beautiful cut. Like I'm a little bit sick of white curtains and, you know, neutral curtains. I'd love curtains with some color in them, you know. So a curtain collection would be really cool. I'd love some pattern. I'd love to do more wallpapers. Um yeah, textiles first, then all the house collabs oh, love that.

Speaker 1

Love to see a fabric that you would design, but I think you make a really good point because you know, with with you know Ellison Studios, for instance, the furniture you manage to design pieces that designers love but it's very the general public love. You know, it's actually a really clever crossover and they're at such a great price point as well that you know the mum and dad when they want to invest in their sort of first special sofa. It's very accessible and that's just like it's genius.

Speaker 3

Thank you, you know, but I just have always, and that probably came out of real living, was just constantly working around all of these beautiful things, of these amazing brands, and it was, you know, $15,000 for a sofa, or more, you know and I just felt that I was frustrated by that and I did feel that there was a gap in the market. But you know, gosh, there's so many brands now. I feel like the Australian market. There's so many more brands than when we launched in 2017.

Speaker 2

So the market is very competitive now, but I do.

Speaker 3

I love the idea of you know. The average person or someone who's renovating or building a house has access to great product, well-designed, at a reasonable price point.

Speaker 1

And that is so amazing, like that's got to be really hard to do, yeah.

Speaker 3

I don't know Can be tricky.

Speaker 3

I think as well with high-end stuff, it's not accessible in even like a presentation sense. It's like they're the brands we know as designers, but the average person just doesn't even know they exist, doesn't even know they exist. So I do like the whole process of designing the product, creating it and then also being able to present it to people in a way that they can understand and be inspired by and go that's cool. I never thought of that. I never thought that I could use that colour. I never thought that I could try that.

Speaker 2

I do like to inspire people in that way.

Inspirations in Interior Design

Speaker 3

Yeah, exactly who thought brown would be back in, you know, back in fashion it's not going anywhere either.

Speaker 2

Um, thanks, sarah. It's been an amazing chat. I feel like we've covered so much stuff and great to touch on all those style eras. Um, we are going to talk to you and ask you a few more questions, but they won't be on here. If the listeners want to hear you talk about a couple of things more personal, they will need to pop over to the YouTube channel to see that. So we will say bye and thank you for now on the podcast and then we're going to talk to you on the YouTube channel.

Speaker 3

Okay, Sounds good.

Speaker 1

So thank you guys for listening in and just a quick reminder if you would like some help with the interiors for your own home, I can help you in a course called the Style Studies Essentials. Or for designers out there, come into the Design Society for business and marketing and all of the things.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and in the same show notes you'll find a link to sign up for my soon-to-be-released furniture collections, pre-selected furniture collections and cool trend information, and then, in the future, some short courses on styling and trends as well.

Speaker 1

So good Bree. We've got the utmost respect for the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. They're the OG custodians of this unceded land and its waters, where we set up shop, create and call home and come to you. From this podcast today, A big shout out to all of the amazing elders who have walked before us, those leading the way in the present and the emerging leaders who will carry the torch into the future. We're just lucky to be on this journey together.