Pilates Founder Ali Handley on Determination, Scaling With Soul and the Power of Community

Illustrator Adriana Picker on Nurturing a Creative Life, Daily Joy and Trusting Yourself to Figure It Out

Adriana Picker is one of Australia's most beloved illustrators and the best-selling author of several books - including Petal, a stunning coffee table book of botanical illustration that thousands of copies around the world. With an upbringing in NSW’s Blue Mountains and the Hunter Valley, Adriana has been surrounded by nature and botanicals since her early childhood and she talks beautifully about her formative years shaped in her grandmother’s garden. After moving to Sydney to study at the Collegue of Fine Arts, she became an intern for acclaimed costumer designer Catherine Martin - her illustrations for the film Australia were shown at the Oscars. She followed that with The Great Gatsby, then stepped out entirely on her own. Her folio today spans commercial and editorial illustration, murals, exhibition work, and several books — including Petal, which hasn’t left my coffee table since it came out. She came to our conversation 31 weeks pregnant and I was incredibly grateful to speak to her at this transformative time. In this conversation, we explore what Covid completely changed about her relationship to ambition, how she lives with hyperfocus and what she's learned to do with it, what it means to structure a whole life around appreciating beauty, and what happens to your creative identity when you're about to become a mother. Find Adriana's work at adrianapicker.com | Follow: @adrianapicker | Petal at all good bookstores ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Interior Designer Chloe Matters on Burning Out, Starting Over and Rebuilding a Life on Her Own Terms

Chloe Matters is the founder and creative director of Matters and Made, one of Sydney's most distinctive interior design studios. Chloe came into the world with an innate confidence - a willingness to back herself and simply go for it. Which is exactly what makes her honesty in this conversation so compelling. She's remarkably candid about what it felt like to lose that confidence. She launched Matters and Made when her second child was just six months old and her first had only recently turned one. What followed wasn't the version of success she'd imagined. There was burnout, the end of her marriage, and a period where her confidence was completely shaken. So she rebuilt. Learning to trust herself again, to work differently, and to define success on her own terms. In this conversation, we explore the role our homes play in regulating the nervous system, how her relationship with work has evolved, and the non-negotiables that now shape the way she lives, leads and designs. Follow Chloe: @mattersandmade_ | Find her at mattersandmade.com ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Creative Heleena Trahanas on Sustained Passion, Creating With the People You Trust and Finding the Beauty in Imperfection

Heleena Trahanas is PR and Marketing Manager at Dinosaur Designs and co-founder of Alex and Trahanas - the Sydney-born Mediterranean lifestyle brand she built with her friend Alexandra Heard. Heleena's family came from Greece - her grandparents migrated separately, each building something from nothing. That tenacity is in everything she does. She has spent over thirteen years at Dinosaur Designs while building Alex and Trahanas on the side - a world of hand-painted Italian ceramics, beautiful linen, and a deep love of the Mediterranean way of life, now celebrating ten years. In this conversation, we talk about what it actually takes to sustain passion and creative energy over a long professional tenure, how Alex and Trahanas was born on a friendship built on shared loves, and why joy - not grind - sits at the centre of everything Heleena creates .Find Alex and Trahanas at alexandtrahanas.com | Dinosaur Designs at dinosaurdesigns.com.au | Follow: @alexandtrahanas @heleenatrahanas [https://www.instagram.com/heleenatrahanas/#] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Pilates Founder Ali Handley on Determination, Scaling With Soul and the Power of Community

Ali Handley is the founder of Bodylove Pilates with four studios across Sydney, Bali on the horizon and a community of women who are deeply, genuinely devoted to what she has built. Ali didn't find her calling immediately. She started in PR and media before discovering Pilates in New York, where she specialised in prenatal and postnatal work. She came home to Sydney in 2018 and opened her first studio a month after having her third child. In this conversation we talk about what it really takes to scale something without losing the soul of it, how she holds the line between gut instinct and hard data and the role of genuine community in building a business that lasts. Bodylove has been a consistent anchor in my life for the past six years - through grief, burnout, pregnancy and recovery - and has fundamentally changed my relationship with my body and with movement. I'm share excited to share Ali's with you. Find Bodylove Pilates at bodylove-pilates.com | Bodylove Mamas at bodylove-mamas.com | Follow Ali: @bodylove_pilates ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Model and writer Jessica Vander Leahy on Building a Career That Doesn't Box You In, Conscious Balance and Why Boundaries Are an Act of Compassion

Jessica Leahy is a journalist, model and author and one of the most joyfully multi-hyphenate women I have ever had the pleasure of speaking with. Raised in Papua New Guinea before moving to Sydney, Jess built an incredible career across two worlds - as a journalist working across Australia's leading women's publications, while simultaneously building a modelling career with Bonds, RM Williams, Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. Jess built her modelling career at a time when there were very few women who looked like her in Australian fashion. She didn't just succeed in spite of that - she used her platform to make sure more women like her could. She is also the author of Loved People, Love People - a gorgeous children's book about self-love. In this chat, we talk about the portfolio career before it had a name, what it means to be malleable in a world that wants you to stay in your lane, and why advocating for your own boundaries is the most important thing you can do. Follow Jess: @jessicavanderleahy  ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.