Olive Home, Kova and Ellia are part of an ever-growing trend in Brisbane where homewares and fashion merge to create a true lifestyle experience. By Emily Mobbs.
His window display is a carefully crafted device. Hours were spent coordinating the Ginger and Smart dresses that stand behind the Ginger and Smart room candles. Every last detail down to the lantern that hangs from the ceiling works in harmony.
Paul Alcock, joint owner of Olive Home, is one of many retailers who provide Brisbanites with this unique fashion concept: combining women’s fashion with lavish homewares. Tired of department stores, but still looking for a one-stop shop, women can express their personal style through decorating the home and themselves at these boutiques.
With stores in both Paddington and the Wintergarden in Brisbane’s CBD, Olive Home provides customers with an interesting and diverse range of products for the home and individual. Soft furnishings, bedding, furniture, decorator items, luggage and clothes from major labels Ginger and Smart, Metalicus and George, all help form a complete lifestyle package.
“We try to tell a whole story through both our timeless fashion and homeware pieces,” Alcock says. “We tend to buy our clothes, which match our shoes, which match our accessories.”
Sydney and Melbourne house two major lifestyle stores, Orson and Blake and Husk. Both combine women’s boutique with opulent homewares and are leading examples in providing this distinctive shopping experience.
But Brisbane has definitely put its stamp on the map. Tempt yourself with exquisite fashion and decadent furniture at Windsor’s Ellia or find the perfect gift for yourself and home at Bella Cee in West End or Vanilla House at Coorparoo.
Similarly, New Farm boutique Kova also offers consumers an elite mix of interior decor and boutique fashion labels including Fleur Wood, Metalicus and Flannel.
Owner, Bianca De Luca, believes lifestyle concept stores are becoming increasingly popular in Brisbane because of the nature of our lives; comparing her Fortitude Valley shop to a mini department store, where it’s easy for customers to pick up a dress for a wedding and buy the present at the same time.
“We’re all time poor and if you can tick a couple of boxes while shopping at Kova than you’re solved,” says De Luca.
QUT business lecturer Dr Robin Price, agrees, saying the trend towards mixing homewares and fashion in a retail environment is successful based on four major components – time poor consumers who find one-stop shopping easier, retailers trying to expand branding and sales, higher profitability of homewares and societal spending patterns.
Although De Luca stresses that there’s not a typical Kova customer, it could be assumed they would be categorised by the marketing demographic known as NEOs (the New Economic Order customer).
This group is socially progressive, economically conservative, driven by high discretionary choice rather than basic needs and has the highest spending capacity than anyone else in the economy.
“It is also possible that NEOs are just smart, somewhat cynical consumers sick of buying crappy products that fall apart, so are happy to spend more to buy something that will last,” Price explains.
Whether a NEO or just an average Aussie mum with a pram, one thing is certain – the people of Brisbane have been given an opportunity to express their personal style and buy into a whole lifestyle.