Making it up as we grow: Life Instyle makers share their lessons learned while running a creative business

Anyone who’s ever started a small business knows the story rarely unfolds the way you imagined it would.

There are the late-night ideas scribbled in notebooks, the pivots you never saw coming and the moments when sheer stubbornness carries you further than any carefully crafted business plan. Along the way, there are lessons that only experience can teach: when to adapt, hold your nerve, or throw out the rulebook altogether.

These conversations all happen at Life Instyle, Australia’s leading trade event for thoughtful design-led retail, where hundreds of independent brands, creatives and retailers gather to share ideas, forge connections and discover new opportunities to help them grow.

Returning to Melbourne’s Royal Exhibition Building from 6 to 8 August (yes, for three days this year!) the event brings together a thoughtfully curated mix of established names and emerging talent, united by a love of good design and purposeful business. It’s just the place to discover what’s best and brightest in Australian-made creativity, innovation and community.

Ahead of this year’s event, we asked a handful of the lovely exhibiting brand owners to get real about what it’s like building a business today. Their answers offer a glimpse behind the products and into the people creating them…

Helen Bailey / Rare Rabbit

Designed in Australia and inspired by a love of art, photography and all things ’70s, Rare Rabbit creates what it describes as ‘little luxuries’: pieces intended to bring beauty to everyday life, from signature jewellery and leather goods to its newly launched luxury cotton clothing collection. Alongside a focus on quality and design, the brand is equally committed to thoughtful production practices, using sustainable wood, or ‘stem’ (branches of trees only, allowing whole tree to continue to thrive and re-shoot in time) in much of its jewellery, and supporting educational opportunities for the families of supplier communities through its Reading Rabbits scholarship program. We spoke to Helen Bailey, ex-Legal Aid lawyer and founder of Rare Rabbit.

One thing I wish I’d known when I started my business is that growth doesn’t always come from creating more. I exhibited at my first Life Instyle trade fair at 36 weeks pregnant with my fourth child. Over the next 18 years, I designed and produced around 200 new products every six months, supplying more than 750 retailers. Our creations have found homes everywhere from beautiful boutique stores in outback Queensland to institutions such as the New York Museum of Design.

For years, I thought growth came from creating many new products to satisfy retailers’ needs. What I know now is that growth often comes from giving great products more time to be discovered. Back then, every season brought the pressure of designing, sampling, managing production and making sure everything arrived on time. Today, with digital tools and algorithms helping customers find products they love, I’ve realised that not every season needs a completely new story. The biggest relief has been understanding that I can spend more time refining, nurturing and growing the products people already love, rather than constantly chasing the next collection. I wish I’d learned that lesson sooner. It would have saved a lot of creative churn and stress, and allowed me to enjoy the creative process even more.

What keeps me adaptable, optimistic and creatively energised is staying close to our customers. We’ve always been incredibly customer-focused and fastidious about both the products we create and the service we provide. Over many years, that commitment has become part of the Rare Rabbit brand itself.

I genuinely love interacting with customers. I still enjoy picking and packing orders, reading customer feedback and having direct conversations with the people who choose to spend their hard-earned money with us. It keeps me connected to why we do what we do. When things feel uncertain, our customers remind me that behind every order is a real person looking for something special. Knowing we’ve delighted someone, solved a problem or made their day a little brighter never gets old. Positive feedback still makes my heart sing. After 17 years in business, it’s those customer connections that continue to inspire new ideas, keep me optimistic and remind me why I started in the first place.

When things feel uncertain, our customers remind me that behind every order is a real person looking for something special.

Human connection! After so many years in business, many of the retailers, collaborators and creatives I meet at Life Instyle have become genuine friends. I care about how they’re going, how their families are doing and what’s happening in their businesses. Those relationships have been built over years, sometimes decades, and that’s something you simply can’t replicate online. I’m probably a little old-fashioned in that I don’t spend much time on social media, so I genuinely value face-to-face conversations. There’s an honesty and depth to in-person interactions that technology can’t replace.

Trade fairs are also one of the best places to understand where trends are heading. While digital platforms are incredibly useful, I sometimes feel they can flood our lives with a lot of sameness. At a trade fair, you can discover truly original designers, see products up close, touch and feel materials, and understand the craftsmanship behind them.

Whether I’m exhibiting or thinking as a retailer, I think it’s important to step away from the screen and experience products in the real world. Great design is often something you need to see, touch and connect with in person. That’s how you discover what resonates with your customers and what will genuinely delight them.

What brings me the most joy is seeing people genuinely love and wear something I’ve created. I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but every product feels a little bit like one of my children. When you’ve spent countless hours designing, refining and bringing something to life, it’s hard not to become emotionally attached.

One of my favourite memories involves two wonderful long-term retailers, Ellen and Brett from Mott & Mulberry at Indooroopilly, who have supported Rare Rabbit for many years. Back when my daughters were swimming in Friday afternoon GPS meets, I’d climb the stairs into the grandstand and spot woman after woman wearing a Rare Rabbit necklace. Every time it happened, I couldn’t help but smile.

There’s something incredibly special about seeing one of your creations ‘in the wild’. In that moment, it’s no longer just a product you’ve designed. It’s become part of someone’s life, their outfit, their happiness, their story. After all these years, that feeling hasn’t changed. Seeing someone choose to wear and enjoy something I’ve created still brings me enormous joy.

Great design is often something you need to see, touch and connect with in person. That’s how you discover what resonates with your customers and what will genuinely delight them.

Stefi Kerby / Celia Loves

What is the fragrance of joy? Personal question, we know! But if joy did have a scent, it might smell something like velvet cherry, nectarine blossom, green moss and vanilla… All wafting from a Celia Loves creation. Founded by Stefi Kerby on Victoria’s Surf Coast, Celia Loves crafts vegan-friendly, scented soy wax candles and home fragrance products designed to bring a little personality and pause to everyday life.

Hand-poured and family-owned, the brand works with an artisan fragrance house and built a loyal following thanks to its bold scents, playful packaging and commitment to creating quality. Every collection is crafted with reusable vessels and thoughtfully designed packaging. We spoke to founder Stefi Kerby about Celia Loves.

There will come a point where you stop designing purely for yourself and start designing for your customer. In the early days, everything was driven by my own taste, intuition and passion, whereas now all of our decisions are informed by customer feedback and data. There’s a real magic in that too – understanding what people connect with and creating products that genuinely resonate. I’d also tell myself to stop being so afraid of getting it wrong.

Over time, I’ve replaced the idea of failure with learning. Eight years in, I still don’t have all the answers, and I’ve realised that you never really do. Running a business is a constant cycle of learning, evolving and figuring things out as you go. The difference now is that I’m far more comfortable not knowing the answer straight away, because I trust that I’ll find it.

Running a business is a constant cycle of learning, evolving and figuring things out as you go. The difference now is that I’m far more comfortable not knowing the answer straight away, because I trust that I’ll find it.

We spend a lot of time paying attention to what our customers and wholesalers are telling us, what they love, what they’re looking for, and where their pain points are. That feedback becomes our roadmap. One of the advantages of being a small business is that we’re agile. We can respond quickly, test new ideas and adapt as our customers’ tastes evolve. Rather than seeing change or uncertainty as a challenge, we try to see it as an opportunity to better serve our community and showcase what makes our brand special.

We’ve always been very solutions-focused. We don’t bury our heads in the sand when things get tough – we tackle challenges head-on and focus on what’s within our control. That mindset keeps us optimistic, and knowing we’re constantly creating products and experiences that our customers genuinely want is what keeps us creatively energised.

Human connection will always be irreplaceable. In a sensory-based business like ours, there’s something incredibly special about standing in front of someone and seeing their reaction in real time. Whether it’s a smile when they discover a scent they love, the stories a fragrance brings back, or even the honest feedback when something isn’t quite right, those moments are invaluable. Digital channels do an amazing job of helping us connect with our community, but there are certain things that simply can’t be replicated online. You can read fragrance notes and see beautiful imagery, but you can’t experience the craftsmanship, emotion and scent itself through a screen.

People genuinely loving the brand. Creating products is one thing, but watching customers connect with them, recommend them to their friends, share them online and completely fangirl over them is something else entirely. Whether it’s reading comments, hearing customers talk passionately about their favourite scent, or seeing someone introduce the brand to a friend, those moments fill my cup every time. As much as I love the creative side of the business, the greatest joy comes after the product is out in the world. Seeing it become part of someone’s home, rituals and everyday life is incredibly rewarding, and never gets old.

Human connection will always be irreplaceable. In a sensory-based business like ours, there’s something incredibly special about standing in front of someone and seeing their reaction in real time.

Cecile Boston / Les Folies: Sophie la girafe®

When best friends and new mums Cecile and Isabelle went looking for a special teething aid popular in their home country of France since 1961, they could not find it on Australian soil… And so, in 2006, they decided to start their own company, Les Folies, and introduce Sophie la girafe® to the Land Down Under. This award-winning baby teether is made of 100% natural rubber made with the sap of the Hevea tree, painted with non-toxic, food-grade paints, and is lightweight and easy for small hands to grasp. But best of all? It comes in the shape of the cutest giraffe, she of the name Sophie. Cecile Boston shares more about being the sole distributor of this bestselling and perennially beloved quadruped.

We would tell ourselves to be patient, and to trust the journey. When we started distributing Sophie la girafe® in Australia 20 years ago, honestly, we had no idea where it would take us. There were challenges, beautiful opportunities, and many little surprises on the way. But building a business people can trust takes time. Looking back, we would say: stay true to your values, keep going step by step, and believe in what you are doing. In the end, this matters much more than trying to have quick results.

Stay true to your values, keep going step by step, and believe in what you are doing.

Isabelle [Gardy] and I have been best friends since school, so this business has always been a friendship story, too. For 20 years, we have grown alongside Sophie la girafe® in Australia. What keeps us motivated is remembering why Sophie is so special, and why families keep choosing her, generation after generation.

Even if the baby world is always changing, Sophie still has a special place in families’ hearts. Her iconic shape, easy-to-hold neck and legs, natural rubber texture, little squeak, and many chewable parts make her comforting for babies through every stage of teething. We often hear from parents that their baby simply won’t let her go, and many parents buying Sophie today had one themselves as babies, which is very touching for us.

We stay curious, listen to our customers, welcome new ideas and keep learning. Most of all, we love what we do, and this helps us stay positive, flexible and excited for what comes next.

For us, nothing can really replace human connections. Of course, online is very practical and we are lucky to have it, but when you meet someone face-to-face, it is different. You can share a smile, tell a story, feel the energy of the person. This is how trust starts, in a much more natural way than behind a screen.

Events like Life Instyle are very precious for this. We can meet retailers, customers and other business owners, listen to their stories, and learn from what they have experienced too. Some of our most beautiful partnerships started with just a simple conversation at Life Instyle. There is something very real, very warm when people meet in person. Even today, with everything digital, we think this feeling is still so important.

When you meet someone face-to-face, it is different. You can share a smile, tell a story, feel the energy of the person. This is how trust starts, in a much more natural way than behind a screen.

What brings us the most joy is knowing Sophie has become part of so many family stories. We often meet parents who had Sophie as babies and are now buying one for their own children, or teenagers who still remember having one when they were little. Seeing this connection continue across generations is very special for us.

We also feel lucky that what started as a friendship between two school friends has grown into a business loved by Australian families. Working together every day, doing something we truly love, and receiving kind messages, photos, and seeing Sophie in the prams… these are the moments that touch us the most.

♡ Better Together is a collection of Peppermint Partnerships where we team up with brands we love to bring you inspirational stories. We’re so grateful for their help so we can keep doing what we do!

THIS POST WAS CREATED WITH THE SUPPORT OF OUR FRIENDS AT LIFE INSTYLE, THE ULTIMATE DESTINATION FOR HIGH-END TRADE RETAIL. IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR THE BEST BRANDS FOR YOUR STORE, MAKE SURE YOU DON’T MISS THE NEXT EVENT IN MELBOURNE 6 – 8 AUGUST AT MELBOURNE’S ROYAL EXHIBITION CENTRE.