As a mentor for Mentor Walks Australia, I meet many interesting and talented women. Sometimes these are one off encounters, sometimes more. Occasionally it opens the way to a new collaboration. This is the case with Karen Miles an ex journalist and founder of French Consul.
French Consol
Karen founded French Consul for those who love a weekend trawling the markets, yearning for a piece of the countryside or coast, or dreaming about one day moving to Provence. French Consul linen homewares are inspired by the classic French farmer’s ‘grain sack’ stripe. She is dedicated to ensuring the family tradition of the striped linen grain sack, once utilised by grain farmers throughout Europe to identify their family’s grain at market – and now highly sought-after by homewares and textile lovers – the story lives on.
Karen sells into the retail. With disruption of Covid19 access to the market has changed, so she is exploring new ways into the market. We are sharing possibilities to get her beautiful quality products in front of new customers. French Consul’s products are made from 100% soft-washed linen fabric. The flax is grown in France, woven in one of the last surviving family linen mills in Ireland and handsewn in Ireland and Australia. Products are made from unbleached, natural linen, the woven ‘grain sack’ stripes come in soft vintage shades of grey, navy, black and white. Designed in Sydney, Australia. Check out French Consul, frenchconsul.co
A New Possibility
Karen is also discussing with Corban & Blair and other designers and artisans the possibility of a new Australian mark. Like MADE IN AUSTRALIA but for design and handcrafted artefacts to showcase Australian design and manufacturing quality.
Collaboration Attributes
Corban & Blair’s philosophy is to work with others they admire and respect, to explore new methods, processes and behaviours.
Post Covid19 our survival as creative business is based on exploring new channels, methods, ideas and information to make our industry exciting and viable. We are constantly collecting and attracting like-minded people to grow and share this attitude with.
Collaboration across sectors, to share ideas and contacts, is powerful and will ensure the survival of businesses and even whole industries.
We have enjoyed listening to the WOBI talks and daily inspirations. In particular Jesús Cochegrús talk on the importance of collaboration. This is process will be especially important for Australian businesses going forward.
Enjoy,
Gillian Corban
We acknowledge that this land area traditionally belonged to the Gadigal and Wangal peoples of the Eora nation.