Categories
Art Designers Furniture Homewares Interviews Styling The Block

Our 10 best interviews from the heartfelt to the hilarious

After two years and over 1,000 articles(!), my time at Interiors Addict has come to end. It truly is bittersweet. To think I started as the editorial assistant, still at uni, working one day a week and feeling very out of my comfort zone… and now I’m here, the outgoing features editor, off to tackle the big bad world as a news producer at Sky News. Goodbye cushions, hello current affairs, business and politics (wish me luck!). 

So to mark my departure, I thought I’d do one more list post. Below, I’ve put together my favourite interviews, from the motivational and heartfelt to the hilarious and oh so juicy.

Maisie Callcott is one inspiring teenager. Starting her business at the mere age of 12, the now 16-year-old runs Maypole Design, an online business selling wall hangings, rope-based jewellery and accessories and clay bowls. They’re beautiful and crazy affordable.

FullSizeRender-4-640x640

Now this was one interview I was quite nervous about. I made Jen read it and then re-read it again. After all, you can’t have any grammatical errors in an article about the editor-in-chief of Vogue Living, Neale Whitaker! He talked all things The Block, life in magazine-world and his many varied inspirations.

neale

I had the fortune of interviewing Shaynna Blaze on more than one occasion, but this interview was certainly my favourite. As a Block judge, resident designer on Selling Houses Australia, author and so much more, Shaynna got very honest as she opened up about her favourite contestants, copping flak and how she juggles it all.

Shaynna Blaze Blank Canvas

What a life Jeff Leatham has led! As the go-to florist to the stars, he’s designed floral arrangements for some of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities and his stories, unsurprisingly, are juicy!

Jeff Leatham Fleurology_Lifestyle 1

There’s nothing quite like a story where someone loses it all but bounces back stronger and better than ever. It makes for some good motivational reading and the story of Claire Falkiner, founder of Merci Perci, is just that. Losing her job just days before Christmas and two weeks before her husband lost his, she decided to change paths and is now a successful artist doing what she loves.

Claire Falkiner

With so many homewares businesses out there it can be hard to stand out from the crowd. But one small business which has been able to do so is Hunting For George, who recently celebrated their fifth birthday. So it seemed only natural we ask: how do sisters Jo Harris and Lucy Glade-Wright do it?!

hunting-for-george-4-640x853

While I’ve interviewed many interior designers it’s hard to compete with the impressiveness of Jeff Copolov, interior design director at Bates Smart. With the firm having a 162-year-old history (now 163!) the projects Jeff has been involved in are absolutely jaw-dropping.

Jeff Copolov

Demian Carey Gibbins has a story many will envy. Feeling like his corporate career was ruling his life, he decided to hand in his resignation and return to his childhood love of painting. Having been a finalist in a range of renowned awards, his most interesting venture has been coordinating a successful exhibition of Bali 9 ringleader Myuran Sukumaran’s paintings.

Demian Carey Gibbins

The making of Incy Interiors is quite the fairytale. Starting with humble ambitions, founder Kristy Withers began the business when after a fruitless search for a bed for her son she decided to design one herself. Now, she’s runs a business of 13 people, has a new flagship store in Sydney’s Chatswood Chase and sells both kids and adult furniture.

Withers025-640x427

No one likes to talk cleaning, but for Murchison-Hume we will make an exception! What started as a local Sydney business has now well and truly gone international, but founder Max Kater’s mission has remained the same: for her products to be the trifecta of safe and green, looking and smelling great and performing well.

Max-+-Charlie-Country-Road-+-Cotton-Love-640x426

We hope you liked this list. 

Categories
Art Designers Homewares Interviews

Claire Falkiner of Merci Perci: the women behind the brightly coloured headdresses

When Claire Falkiner lost her job as a textile designer just days before the Christmas of 2013 (and two weeks after her husband lost his!), she decided to look at it as a blessing, not a curse.

untitled-123
Claire

Seeing it as a time to get creative, she picked up her paints and started designing. And the end result was a large artwork of a colourful headdress. “I didn’t really like it and shoved it straight under my bed,” explains Claire. “But then my friend came over and saw it poking out and said: ‘That is awesome!’ I said: ‘You can have it if you want?’ So she framed it and I saw it in a different light. Then one of her girlfriends wanted one so I made one for her.” And as they say, the rest is history!

IMG_4122

Now working under her business Merci Perci (named after her too-cute rabbit!), Claire’s work is stocked in stores across Australia. Her headdresses are of particular success, with the brightly coloured, pattern crazy one-offs being made from paper. “They take me about four-to-five hours to complete, from marking out the design on watercolour paper, to painting it — I use acrylics and gouache depending on what I want and then I use Posca pens and watercolour – to cutting it all out and then mounting it. I mount them on foam core to make them three-dimensional.”

untitled-145
Claire and Perci

Inspired by a photo she saw of a man from Papua New Guinea, Claire immediately fell in love with the colourful headdress he was wearing. “Papua New Guinea have some of the most incredible birds in the world and the tribes make these beautiful brightly coloured headdresses from their feathers. I wanted to buy one, but they’re hard to get yours hands on, so then I thought they’d be cool to be made out of paper.”

untitled-85

Alongside her headdresses, Claire creates little angel and monster artworks, which are in the same style only smaller. However, it is her latest venture she is particularly excited about, with her artistic style being transferred to textiles in the form of a cushion range. “With my textile design background I thought I definitely needed to create some cushions. They’re all very brightly coloured and heavily patterned which is what I like to do. Most of them are made from 100% Russian linen, however there’s a limited edition range that are linen on the front and leather on the back. I have a gorgeous soft silver leather and a very small amount of gold.”

Yet Claire’s not stopping there, seeing more big things for Merci Perci in 2015. “It’s currently a bit of a pipe dream but the next thing I want to do is a collection of ceramic art plates. I thought how nice would it be to bring back those nana plates on the wall but in cool patterns, and also have them be functional.”

IMG_4124

With it not being all that long ago that Merci Perci was just a passion side project, Claire still cannot believe it is her full-time job! “I never thought it’d go anywhere, but rather saw it as a fun excuse to get my paints out again. But now it has actually become something. It still blows my mind!”

For more information visit Merci Perci and Greenhouse Interiors.

Categories
Art Homewares

Olivia’s Fab Four Insta-Finds 14.01.15

Olivias-Fab-Four-1

Olivia’s Fab Four is a weekly post that features my favourite finds on Instagram for the past week. To be in the running, all you have to do is hashtag your product photos #oliviasfabfour and tag them with my handle: @oliviashead.

olivias fab four 35 interiors addict

Here are this week’s beautiful products (clockwise from top left)

1. The Spike Shape Artwork, $880, from Merci Perci. @merciperci_

2. Copper Boyd Pot (small), $125, from Pop & Scott. @popandscott

3. Carlos Cactus Pink, $64, from Say Hola. @say_hola

4. Pineapple Artwork, $250, from Mia Oatley. @miaoatley

 I’ll be back with more next week! Olivia x