- interview

a minute with

The Style Co

www.thestyleco.com.au

 

How it all began and the change you have seen?

It was fuelled by her not-so-awesome experience planning her own wedding and realising that no bride should ever have to match a chair cover sash to the colour of a Gerbera centrepiece, Marie de Vera created The Style Co., a safe haven for the ‘rebels’ who rejected the cookie-cutter wedding look and create a custom experience for their friends and family.

Those couples who understood the vision, jumped straight on board and soon enough, The Style Co. was labelled one Australia's leading event stylists. 

Sarah Gonsalves joined Marie creating a partnership that saw The Style Co. go from strength to strength. With Sarah and Marie at the helm The Style Co. are now a team of twelve with backgrounds in design, styling, floristry, graphic design, project management and wedding planning and have designed for numerous high profile clients.

How would you describe your design aesthetic?

Our individual design aesthetics are quite different but we both agree when it comes to keeping things simple and understated with a twist of character.

Give some insight into what a typical day entails on an event for The Style Co?

Most of our events take months to design and plan, a few hours to set up and a couple of hours to pack down with marquee events generally taking longer.

The days in the lead up to an event, the team are prepping all of the items, custom builds and floristry - counting, cleaning, sorting, checking, packing, painting, making and ensuring all items are ready for delivery.

On event day the Creative Project Manager starts the day off with briefing the crew on the design, their allocated areas and jobs as well as any other important information they need to know. We can have anywhere between 10 to 50 people setting up an event at the one time from crew to stylists, florists, builders, riggers, lighting and audio technicians, etc depending on the size of the install/build "so it's so important for our team to be super organised".

While the overall event bump in (set up) is managed by the Creative Project Manager, the Event Designer and lead Florist ensures the styling and floristry is executed as per the design.

As our team clean up, our photographer comes in and shoots the finished product (so we can share later on).

As the event finishes, our crew are ready and waiting in the wings to pull it all down (the painful part) and return the venue back to it's original condition.

What’s on the horizon for The Style Co?

So much!  Bigger and better events, more 'How to Style Co' workshops, some travel, collaborations with awesome people and some secret projects (you'll have to wait and see).

What are you loving at the moment?

We're working on some exciting designs and we're really enjoying running our 'How to Style Co' workshops at the moment.

What’s on the music playlist in the studio?

Just about everything! We can never agree on a playlist so it's on 'random'.  

Team indulgences that keep the creative energy flowing?

Chocolates (there's always a good supply), pilates and boxing (a few of the team do this before and after work together), 'Friday Funday' (we take the team out for a fun activity on the last Friday of every month) and caffeine, lots and lots of caffeine.  

If you could create your dream location and job what would it look like?

To be honest, it changes from day to day! Sometimes our dream event is an outdoor dinner for 100 on a beautiful private homestead or it could be a romantic boho style event on a white beach with guests dining on low tables and cushions or perfecting the minimalist (with a twist) for an ultra cool cocktail party in a beautiful loft somewhere in New York. Whatever it is, to us, it's all about the creative freedom to design something that not only looks beautiful in a meaningful place but also gives guests (an our clients) an experience they will never forget.

What do you never go without?

Marie:  A camera and notebook

Sarah: Water and my phone 

 

featured