From fashion to furniture: Sarah Ellison's incredible career

Some things in life require straightforward navigation. For instance, when we ask Google Maps to take us from location A to location B, we follow an authoritative GPS voice and some simple instructions.

Navigating other pathways in life, for instance a creative career, is more complicated. It’s less of an A to B roadmap and more of a maze where the hedges haven’t been trimmed.

You might get lost along the way but eventually you’ll find your way out. One person who has travelled this windy path and come out the other side is stylist and furniture designer Sarah Ellison.

Growing up in a quiet country town along Western Australia’s Margaret River, Ellison’s first introduction to styling and design came from her mother at home. “My mum was very creative, she was always making things for our house and sewing cushions and even reupholstered our sofa by herself,” she laughs.

This spirit of creative innovation was absorbed by Ellison, who became interested in photography in her teenage years and would take photos of her friends styled in clothing from her mother’s wardrobe. “I’m still friends with a lot of these girls now and we always have a good laugh when we look at the photos,” she says.

It’s obvious the DIY fashion shoots were the makings of a stylist-to-be but following high school Ellison pursued an alternate path. “No one ever taught me that you could actually have a career doing something like that,” she says.

Eventually in her mid-20s, she came round to the idea. “Maybe it was because I gained some confidence in myself, but I ended up studying fashion because there was something about design that really appealed to me.”

Ellison went on to run her own fashion label for a few years but something didn’t feel quite right. “Fashion didn’t feel like the right world for me,” she says of her decision to leave her label behind.

Ellison, who had since moved to Sydney, still wanted to scratch her creative itch and started working retail at an interiors and homewares store. The retail gig opened up her eyes to a new opportunity.

“I loved it and thought maybe the interiors world is a better fit for me,” she says. “I started doing merchandising for the store and met a lot of interiors stylists who would visit the store to loan stuff for shoots.”

Through these introductions, Ellison started to work as a styling assistant.

“I eventually left retail and assisted some of Sydney’s best stylists for three years, which was exciting because I got to learn on the job, be around creative people and watch their working process.”

The years spent assisting paid off when Ellison was offered the full-time in-house style editor role at home magazine Real Living. “I couldn’t believe someone was paying me to do this, there’s not many people that get a salary for being creative and even though it was hard work, I was extremely grateful.”

While working on editorial shoots day in, day out, Ellison started to dip back into her design roots when she needed specific props she was unable to source. “I always had that feeling that I should be creating and designing my own stuff I could touch,” she says.

“The shoots were great and it’s always nice looking back on beautiful imagery, but it’s quite impermanent, you create the look in a day and then pull it all apart.”

Printed wallpaper was the first interiors-based product to emerge from Ellison. “I’ve always loved wallpaper and used it in a lot of my shoots and at the time digital printing was really kicking in, where you didn’t have to order thousands of metres, you could design something and have only a metre made.”

She used the wallpaper for editorial shoots for the magazine, but when demand for it became clear, Ellison (with the blessing of her boss) started to sell it as her own side business.

A few more years went by and Ellison became a mother. “The shoot days are long, you’re sometimes working for 12 hours a day,” she says. “Before my son was born, I would come home and flop on the couch, but this wasn’t a sustainable option any more, I needed to do something else.”

Ellison was after a new job that would cater to a more even work-life balance, and during this time she met her eventual business partner Leigh McKeown.

“Leigh worked in marketing and PR, and with my experience we wanted to do something together because we knew the interiors world really well.”

“We knew there was a lot of saturation in the homewares market but we also knew what was missing, what was working and what was required to build a brand.”

After a year of design and development, Ellison and McKeown launched their furniture and homewares business. The pair split roles, with Ellison responsible for design and McKeown for strategy.

“We didn’t even know if we would sell anything when we first launched, but three years later and people are still buying,” she says.

Ellison now works for herself full-time and has since relocated to Byron Bay with her family, recently launching her third furniture collection named SOL. “I’m currently really interested in chunky, sculptural forms but excited to see where we go next.”

For now though, Ellison is enjoying the ride and the hard work of running her own creative business.

“It took me 15 years getting  to this point,” she says. “If I could have had this back then of course that’s exactly what I would’ve wanted, but I wouldn’t have learnt all of this along the way, and I wouldn’t change that experience for anything.”