A Poignant Nostalgia Meets Coastal Contemporary Elegance - The New Wave and Golden by Sarah Ellison

Designer Sarah Ellison spent almost ten years as a professional stylist and style editor, an experience that proved a strong foundation for her career shift into product design, which has resulted in two furniture collections thus far – The New Wave and Golden.

While Sarah describes her career as an interior stylist as “incredibly fulfilling”, she says she always knew she would one day create her own products. The fast pace of editorial styling meant at times it felt unsustainable, and she reflects, “I really yearned for a sense of permanence in my work and after 10 years I was asking myself the question ‘what’s next?’”

Since then, her experience across all aspects of the styling world proved invaluable, as she was able to draw on her many contacts in furniture, production, homewares, photography, art direction, marketing and PR. Sarah swiftly began to make a name for herself as a designer around her signature relaxed yet elegant coastal aesthetic.

“I really yearned for a sense of permanence in my work and after 10 years I was asking myself the question ‘what’s next?”

Her latest collection, Golden, is inspired by lazy summer days on the Australian coast, the tactility of natural materials and the ‘golden’ era of post-midcentury furniture design in the 1960s and 70s. The handcrafted rattan pieces subtly weave contemporary silhouettes with a poignant nostalgia that is informed by Sarah’s appreciation of renowned female designers who worked in the 60s and 70s.

Golden is inspired by lazy summer days on the Australian coast.

“For Golden, I took inspiration from Gabriella Crespi. I love Kelly Wearstler for her fearless sense of design, India Mahdavi for her use of colour and playfulness, and Faye Toogood for her effortless cool,” she says. Meanwhile, her experience as a stylist and as mother of a young child led her to focus on balancing form, function and materiality. “I like my pieces to have beauty and elegance, but they are also robust,” she explains.

Of all the influences of her career as a stylist, the one felt most poignantly in Golden is narrative. “Working for an interiors magazine, I was always telling a story,” she says. Here, Golden interweaves reminiscence of the 1970s with a contemporary coastal elegance to create an aesthetic that tells a coastal, distinctively Australian narrative.

“For Golden, I took inspiration from Gabriella Crespi. I love Kelly Wearstler for her fearless sense of design, India Mahdavi for her use of colour and playfulness, and Faye Toogood for her effortless cool.”