Looking as if mined from the earth, this gorgeous new lighting collection is in fact made from hand blown glass. A collaboration between the talented furniture designer (and ex Real Living magazine staffer) Sarah Ellison and the celebrated lighting designer Alex Fitzpatrick from ADesignStudio, the three-piece range is called ALCHEMY.
Pendant light
With its textured, organic aesthetic, the collection features a wall light, table lamp and pendant light and is hand blown using coloured glass. The enlarged, rounded, pebble-like shapes area available in clear, sepia or salmon shades paired with contoured brass bases. Each piece also features LED technology and a black fabric cord.
“Lighting is the most powerful generator of atmosphere in any space and has been a product category my team and I have been exploring for some time. Having worked with Alex many times within my own brand, I didn’t consider anyone other than ADesignStudio for my first design collaboration in the lighting space” says Sarah.
Table lamps
A sought-after lighting designer, Alex has collaborated with an impressive line-up of architects, artists and industrial designers (including Bates Smart and Electrolight), since launching his studio in 2016. This range evolved out of Alex’s fascination with crackled glass.
“What’s unique about this range is that the physical shape and deep tone of the glass really does trick the eye momentarily into believing it’s looking at an exquisite natural stone. Each piece of glass is totally unique. The pieces are blown and formed by hand and then polished into shape. There’s a general dimension and form we follow, but we allow the glass to do its thing which is pretty special.”
I am coveting this beautiful salmon coloured wall sconce
New interior trends 2021: highlighting texture, nature & clever design
If there’s one thing architects, interior experts, forecasters, and leading designers agree on it’s this: our collective experience of lockdown will fundamentally alter the way we live in our homes…
One of the best things about writing for Interiors Addict is being able to learn about amazingly creative people. From artists to designers and everything in between, these individuals have a lot of insights, ideas and inspiration to share. Below are some of our favourite interviews, so get ready to bookmark!
Therese Moussa, The Grounds’ head stylist: Immaculately detailed, the gorgeous Grounds eateries make you feel like you’ve entered an enchanting wonderland, far, far away from Sydney. We spoke to the head stylist, Therese Moussa, about just how much work goes into transforming these bespoke spaces.
The Grounds
Sarah Ellison, stylist and furniture designer: For eight years, Sarah Ellison was the design savvy-mind behind Real Living magazine, but now she has gone solo… creating her own interiors brand. With a style that is modern and relaxed, Sarah gave us the lowdown on her new furniture and homewares.
Sarah
Lucky Price, The Block’s casting director: A self-confessed ‘old hag’ when it comes to The Block, Lucky Price has been working as a casting director on the hit reality show since 2010. So if you fancy being on our TV screens, it comes as no surprise that Lucky is the man with the tips!
Lucky
Jemma Bell, Canvas+Sasson’s resident designer: Canvas+Sasson began as a lot of small businesses do, from home, with the juggle of kids, family and boxes and boxes of cushions. Ten years on, one of the designers behind Canvas+Sasson spilled the secrets, on how the label has flourished over time.
Canvas+Sasson
Tracie Ellis, AURA Home’s founder: We’ve long loved AURA Home so we thought it was about time we learnt about the woman behind the brand, Tracie Ellis. With a background in fashion and design, in 2000 she created her own line. And as they say, the rest is history!
Tracie
Carla Coulson, photographer: While it was Carla Coulson’s stunning art prints which first caught our attention, it was her back story we knew we had to share. At 35, Carla took a plunge, moving to Italy to study photography. If you want to take a leap of faith – but need a little push – this is a must read!
Carla
Cleo Ganis, Leaf & Co’s co-founder: A family affair, Leaf & Co is run by a mother and her two daughters. Working primarily with ceramics, the pieces are handmade using Australian sourced clay, natural minerals and oxides. If you need to do some Christmas shopping, it’s definitely worth checking out.
Cleo and her family
Natalee Bowen, Indah Island’s founder: Jen’s been Hamptons obsessed since she visited earlier this year, but turns out, she may not have had to travel half way around the world… with interior designer Natalee Bowen beautifully portraying Hamptons decor right here in Australia. The photos are a must see!
Indah Island designed home
Christopher Broome, artist: It’s always exciting to discover an artist at the beginning of their career, and Christopher Broome has a particularly interesting story; giving up his job as an electrician to follow his passion: art. This interview will give you all the good feels.
Christopher
Catherine Heraghty, The Stables’ founder: No doubt many of you are familiar with the modern, coastal aesthetic of interior styling company The Stables… they’re well-loved on Instagram that’s for sure! We find out more about the lady behind the feed; plus her story provides plenty of inspiration for any budding designers.
Bonnie and Neil Kooka Waratah Rose Gold Tablecloth
Confession: I don’t own a tablecloth. In fact, prior to writing this article, I thought of tablecloths as the festive monstrosity that came out during family Christmas! But turns out, sometime in the last few years, they become cool, very cool! From abstract artworks to beautiful linens (and everything in between), tablecloths have become a unique way to express your personality and liven up your tabletop.
Martinich&Carran Paradise Island Tablecloth: Bringing to life the art of Melbourne based artist Rowena Martinich, this summery tablecloth is full of turquoise, frothy whites, apricot and pink. Printed on Belgian linen, it retails for $290.
Martinich&Carran Paradise Island Tablecloth
4 Leaf Clover Ficifolia Corymbia Tablecloth: The perfect way to add a uniquely Australian touch to your table, this tablecloth celebrates the beauty of our native flora and fauna. Designed and made in the NSW Southern Highlands from 50% linen and 50% cotton, it retails for $230.
4 Leaf Clover Ficifolia Corymbia Tablecloth
Aqua Door Designs Black Ink Splatter Tablecloth: The Brisbane brand is dedicated to creating unique and colourful homewares the traditional way – by hand. This tablecloth features black ink spatters, screen printed on off-white linen. Coming in two sizes, prices start from $159.
Aqua Door Designs Black Ink Splatter Tablecloth
Linen House Nimes Olive Tablecloth: Stone-washed and ever-so-soft, this pure linen tablecloth is perfect for casual or formal settings and will soften beautifully over time. Available in three sizes and a range of colours, prices start from $99.95.
Linen House Nimes Olive Tablecloth
Alabaster Trader Indian Summer Tablecloth: This tablecloth has been hand block printed in India with a delicate floral paisley design. It strikes the right balance between neutral and interesting and is made from 100% Indian cotton. $79.
Alabaster Trader Indian Summer Tablecloth
Bonnie and Neil Kooka Waratah Rose Gold Tablecloth: Known for their botanical motifs, bright patterns and tributes to Australiana culture, every product is produced by hand in their studio in Melbourne. Made from 100% oat linen tablecloth, this tablecloth features a kookaburra and waratah design in rose and gold. Available in two sizes, prices start from $230.
Bonnie and Neil Kooka Waratah Rose Gold Tablecloth
Dandi Eucalyptus Tablecloth in Mood Indigo: Inspired by the beautiful round leaves of the Silver Dollar Eucalyptus, this tablecloth is printed in Sydney on 100% cotton. It is available in a white and snow colour variation, plus three sizes. $89.95.
Dandi Eucalyptus Tablecloth in Mood Indigo
AURA Home Vintage Stripe Tablecloth: As timeless as it is chic, this charcoal tablecloth is luxuriously tactile and woven from the highest quality linen (60%) and cotton (40%). Available in three colour ways, it retails for $149.
AURA Home Vintage Stripe Tablecloth
Basil Bangs Geometric Powder Tablecloth by Sarah Ellison: The Sydney label has married the superior Teflon technology with their beautiful outdoor canvas to create a tablecloth that looks and feels like a fabric, but with all-star stain resistance! This print has been designed exclusively for Basil Bangs by stylist Sarah Ellison and features a textural watercolour wash background. $179.
Basil Bangs Geometric Powder Tablecloth by Sarah Ellison
We hope you liked the list. Let us know what you would add!
For eight years, Sarah Ellison was the design savvy-mind behind Real Living magazine, curating the trends and influencing the way we design and decorate our homes. As the style editor, she scoured vintage markets, visited the crème de la crème of furniture showrooms and spoke to international designers at the top of their game. So it’s unsurprising that during that time an idea began to form: to create her own interiors brand.
“Through my work I discovered that there was a gap in the market for cool, original design that didn’t have a hefty price tag attached to it,” explains Sarah. “I love being a stylist but wanted an outlet to make all the things I dreamed up!”
Sarah
Launching today, her debut collection, The New Wave, features furniture and home accessories inspired by her native Bondi Beach. Modern and relaxed, it is a curated selection of must-have pieces for a liveable yet unique space. “It’s my version of urban, coastal cool,” says Sarah. “The inspiration was my city lifestyle by the beach with a hint of 1970s.”
Featuring key pieces for the dining and living room, as well as home accessories including sculptural ceramics, the Jay coffee table is her personal favourite. “The top is chunky white terrazzo and the base is a thick-legged, powder-coated steel. He’s contemporary, cool and original.” With a diverse range of materials, the collection also includes 100% washable linen, travertine, marble, brass and natural leather.
Having already started designing her next collection, Sarah is also keeping busy as a freelance interior stylist. They say working at the glossy mags is a tough slog (and not as glamorous as it seems!), but it’s fair to say Sarah’s never worked harder. And we absolutely love what she has to show for it.
Bringing together some of Australia’s leading lifestyle magazines, Bauer Media’s new two-day event, Home, Food & Design Weekend, will celebrate the best of home interiors, food and the latest in design.
Running 23 and 24 May at Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral forecourt, the weekend will include workshops, master-classes and interactive demonstrations; offering readers a rare chance to go behind the scenes with Australia’s leading lifestyle experts.
Programme highlights include:
Mouth-watering recipes and delicious tasters, fresh from the kitchen stage – hosted by Australia’s leading food authorities from The Australian Women’s Weekly, Woman’s Day, Recipes+ and Gourmet Traveller.
Insider secrets on how to create enviable home spaces – straight from top stylists at the interiors workshops hosted by Australian House & Garden, Belle, Real Living and Homes+.
And much, much more…
The event will be hosted by Australia’s leading lifestyle editors and experts. Including: Australian Gourmet Traveller editor Anthea Loucas, Belle editor Tanya Buchanan, Real Living style editor Sarah Ellison and many more.
A corner of my sunroom/ studio in Bondi. Photography Maya Vidulich
From working as a circus artist and stunt performer to an account manager at an advertising agency, Adam Powell has had a very diverse career. Yet it was only after enrolling in a BA in Design Styling and Creative Direction at The Whitehouse Institute of Design, that he finally found his calling: styling. And thank goodness he did because here at Interiors Addict, we believe he is a talent to watch!
Photo credit: Maya Vidulich
“I had left the course hungry to sink my teeth into working in the interiors world,” explains Adam. “So when Chris Deal and Jessica Bellef, who were two of my teachers at The Whitehouse, offered me some assisting work with them at a new company that had just started called Temple & Webster, I jumped on it. Three years on, the brand is Australia’s largest online homewares retailer and I am lucky to have a regular gig there as their senior stylist.”
Working there two days a week, Adam spends the rest of his days freelancing, undertaking a mix of advertising and editorial work for brands such as Real Living, Inside Out and Freedom, a process he finds both challenging and rewarding. “It’s a hard slog being a freelancer and after three years I am only just getting into a good routine with my finances and erratic work schedule. I do love being a freelancer; I love the variety of work and exposure to working with lots of different and talented people who I am constantly learning from.”
Temple & Webster. Photo credit: Denise Braki
While his assisting days are now over (as well as assisting for Temple & Webster he was lucky enough to be taken under the wing of both Jason Grant and Sarah Ellison), Adam is quick to dismiss the rumour that being a senior stylist is glamorous. Aren’t all stylists?!
“The biggest misconception about styling is that it’s a glamorous job. Yes we get to play with beautiful things most days but it’s tough work. A typical shoot day will often start with an early morning trip to the flower market or bakery to pick up consumables, then there is the running around doing pick ups, making furniture, painting walls, building sets, getting the perfect shot, tweaking the perfect shot to make it just right, dismantling furniture, repackaging furniture, doing returns, typing up crediting information and then heading home to work on creative concepts for other jobs.”
Real Living Magazine, June 2014. Photo credit: Nick Scott
But all that tiring work aside, Adam loves his job, his favourite aspect being the ability to tell stories through images, loving that he can pull together products, lighting, paints, colours and props to visually portray a story. It’s something he has always been drawn to, having been a huge collector of props, even from his early childhood. “As a boy, it was all about frogs! My room was a tropical jungle and at the peak of the obsession I had over 500 ornamental frogs,” he admits. “These days, the collecting still happens but on a much smaller scale. Shells, feathers, sea urchins, vintage fishing floats and small clocks all make up my studio space and act as an easy prop department when pulling things together for a shoot.”
Adam’s studio. Photo credit: Maya Vidulich
While it is no doubt a challenging industry to get into, Adam is proof that it is possible, that if you’re not afraid to put yourself out there, experiment and even work for free, you can turn your dream into reality. “What I’d say to budding stylists is try anything and everything. From here it will be a process of elimination in discovering what you love and what you don’t like doing. Work for free — we have all done it before — it shows you are hungry and enthusiastic.”
Temple & Webster. Photo credit: Natalie Hunfalvay
Having followed his own advice and been a fully fledged stylist for the last three years, Adam has achieved countless milestones and undertaken many amazing projects. But his biggest styling triumph is something much more modest: “I guess my biggest milestone would be that turning point when my styling went from a hobby to a career that I could make a living from. It’s something that makes me smile often; the realisation of finding that passion.”
Tahnee Carroll was destined to work in interiors and design, she just had to work out exactly how. “As a kid, my room was never in the same layout for more than a month, I changed everything all the time! Whether I knew it or not, the creative within had found a direction.”
Tahnee Caroll at home. Photo by Lynden Foss.
Beginning her career in interior design for a luxury firm in Sydney, it wasn’t until two years had gone by that she realised it wasn’t the direction she wanted to go in. “Interior design wasn’t quite perfect for me career wise, it didn’t stimulate my creative side enough to warrant staying, but I loved interiors. I just needed to find another outlet and found photographic styling to be the perfect role for me.”
Tahnee’s work in July’s Real Living. Photography by Brett Stevens.
Approaching Real Living magazine for a week’s work experience, Tahnee instantly fell in love with the fast-paced, creativity-fueled world of photographic styling. Following that work experience, she was offered a role as a styling assistant and worked alongside some of Australia’s best, including Glen Proebstel and Sarah Ellison.
Real Living, May 2014. Photography by Maree Homer.
Assisting at Real Living for two years, she did everything from searching far and wide for that one perfect prop, unpacking products, painting and building sets and moving furniture and accessories. “You won’t need a gym membership, let me tell you that!”
Yet while she loved her job, a six-month trip overseas gave Tahnee the inspiration and confidence to step out on her own: “I decided it was time to give assisting the flick and show the industry what I could do! I created a number of moodboards of shoot ideas and put them to the editor of Real Living, Deb Bibby, who then gave me my first job styling the Weekday Meals food segment. Safe to say it was a hit and I’ve been styling the food and entertaining stories ever since.”
Tahnee’s first shoot as a stylist for Real Living, March 2014. Photography by Maree Homer.
Since that first job being published in Real Living’s March 2014 issue, Tahnee has progressed in leaps and bounds, styling a whopping 17 pages in this month’s issue of Real Living and being a contestant in Inside Out magazine and The Home’s Search for a Stylist contest (you can vote for Tahnee’s entry here). The competition has seen wannabe stylists pitted against each other to create a mock Inside Out cover (between you and me, Tahnee’s is my fave!) with the winner getting the chance to style a real Inside Out cover and become a senior stylist at The Home.
“We were given a small number of products from The Home to select from and use in our cover shot,” explains Tahnee. “Then we all had to design and build sets which we believed would stand out to the Inside Out readers in order to get them to vote for us. On shoot day, it was all very secretive, closed studios, tight-lipped editors and hovering stylists. The contestants weren’t allowed to see each other’s sets and everyone was watching you as you tried to create the winning cover. I had so much fun, but it’s so nerve-racking waiting for the results!” (You can vote until 23 July).
Tahnee’s cover for the Search for a Stylist contest. Photography by Nigel Lough.
While Tahnee’s assisting days are now behind her, she is very grateful for what that time gave her, recommending the experience to all budding stylists. “As an assistant, be prepared to go the extra mile,” says Tahnee. “If the stylist wants blue hydrangeas that are out of season and the only florist in Sydney that has them is an hour and a half away, well then you’d better start driving if you want to beat the traffic!”
Real Living July 2014. Photography by Brett Stevens.
Tahnee is proof that if you do the hard work and soak up all the knowledge and skill around you, you can make it as a stylist. Just don’t be afraid to take a chance: “Be outrageous,” says Tahnee. “Sometimes you hit, sometimes you miss, but that’s all part of the learning process and developing your skills.”
Sarah Ellion. As seen in Real Living Magazine, Photography by Maree Homer.
Sarah Ellison sure knows what looks good and she’s partial to a bit (okay, a lot) of pattern, so you really have to wonder why she didn’t do her own wallpaper range before now?!
I chatted to the talented Real Living style editor about Light of Art, her debut collection of six wallpaper designs she describes as “the romance of the beach with the energy of the city all rolled into one, with a nod to my love of fashion.” They’re called Zigzag, Cheetah, Geometric, Splatter, Leopard and Triangles.
Sarah Ellison has the job many readers would kill for: senior stylist on one of the country’s most popular magazines: Real Living, where she’s been for more than 2 years. Here she shares what it’s really like behind the scenes and gives plenty of advice for those wanting to follow in her footsteps.
After fashion college, Sarah Ellison started a small fashion label but to earn some money, she took a job doing visual merchandising for an interiors store. She met many stylists there and started assisting Paul Hopper from House & Garden part-time.
“Fashion and interior styling are very similar jobs,” she says. “The main difference would be that interior styling is much more of a mammoth production. There’s a big difference between calling in some clothing and calling in 6 rooms’ worth of furniture to shoot. Creatively though, the ideas come from the same part of you that gets inspired. Inspiration can be applied to any media.”
Sarah assisted freelance for a couple of years and built a portfolio of test shoots in her spare time. She was assisting stylist Kirsten Bookallil, who had been putting a good word in with Real Living editor Deb Bibby. “I met with Deb and she gave me my first editorial shoot. Unbeknown to me it was actually a bit of a test as there was soon to be a position opening up for a stylist. Deb loved the shoot, put her faith in me and hired me for the job. Great timing too as I must admit there aren’t many jobs out there.”
Photo by Nick Scott
She says the most common misconception about the job of a stylist is that it’s all glamour. “Most of the time you are schlepping furniture around, crawling around on the floor putting Ikea together and being a bit like a courier,” she says.
