Attending the Life Instyle fair for the first time was Adelaide-based start-up Coterie Studio.
Montana Birt and Krissy Stojanac met when they worked together at Adelaide-based gift store Paloma & Co on King William Road, where they developed a passion for developing their own homewares and lifestyle products.
On display at the show in Sydney was their range of French-themed and decorated colour dinner plates, which reflect their connection to French culture. Coterie is a French word that means people who have a collective and shared interest.
“We have had a great experience at the show and being from Adelaide we have met a number of interstate buyers that we would not normally be able to connect with,” Birt says.
“We are a start-up business developed by myself and my business partner Krissy. We were entertaining a lot at home during Covid and we found that a lot of the tableware products that we had were quite boring—and white—so we have developed a range of plates to inject a bit of colour.”
Birt adds they have seen a mixture of bricks and mortar stores and online buyers as well as people from hospitality and event hire companies.
“We have seen a lot of Queensland-based buyers as well as New South Wales buyers. There has also been a spectrum of buyers from those that have had stores for many years and those just starting. We even had buyers from international stores including representatives from Dubai.
“It is smaller show but there are a lot of good quality buyers that have made the effort to come here because they are looking for different products—and they are ordering. They are not browsing; they are ordering and we are very happy with the orders we received.”
