SINGING THE blues
WALTER G’S STUNNING TEXTILES ARE THE RESULT OF TWO FRIENDS SHARING A LOVE OF PATTERN AND TRAVEL
With their distinctive cushions and fabrics gracing some of the most beautiful rooms in Australia, including award-winning hotel Halcyon House, the team behind textile label Walter G – high school best friends Lauren Emerson and Genevieve Hewson – are as relaxed as their designs. They’ve come a long way since launching their business at a Sydney trade show in 2012. They now have more than 100 stockists across Australia, and almost as many in the US.
While seemingly simple, their block-printed designs are recognisably Walter G and almost always in blue. “We started with the natural dye indigo, which is a mesmerising process,” says Lauren. Genevieve adds: “The fabric is put into a 10-foot vat in the ground in India. It goes into this green liquid and when it’s pulled out and comes in contact with the air, it turns blue. All our indigo pieces are still done this way.”
The pair initially met in Year 7 at school on Sydney’s lower north shore, before Lauren went on to study design and Genevieve tackled commerce. It was while Lauren was doing an internship in India that she emailed Genevieve to ask if she’d be interested in starting a textiles business. “It was that loose!” recalls Genevieve. “I said, ‘Yeah, I’d love to. Where do we start?’”
Genevieve packed her bags and moved to India, and the pair immersed themselves in designing, as well as building a base of local suppliers. “It was not glamorous,” says Lauren. “At one point, we were living in a hostel, complete with rats! We were young, though, and happy to rough it.”
During their six-month stint in India, the girls set themselves a goal, to launch the following year at the 2012 Life InStyle trade event, where homewares retailers visit manufacturers and wholesalers to select pieces to sell. “We learned to do everything ourselves, even code so we could build a website,” recalls Genevieve. “There wasn’t much else to do in India!” adds Lauren.
They achieved their aim, shipped a container load of stock and successfully launched at the fair. The name, Walter G, is a nod to their late grandfathers, Walter and George. “Even now some of our Indian suppliers think we work for Walter and want to speak to ‘Mr Walter’ to finalise prices,” says Lauren. “We have to remind them, ‘No, we are Mr Walter’.”
“Three of our original designs – ‘Dash Dot’, ‘Pyramids’ and ‘Hanami’ – are still our most popular” ~ GENEVIEVE
Today, the designs are still hand-drawn and digitalised in Sydney before being carved into wood blocks in India. “We always design in blue because, well, everything looks better in blue,” says Lauren. While they still use indigo they have diversified to include other pigments
– mostly in other shades of blue.
At Life InStyle 2017, the pair unveiled some new designs which will be available in mid-April. This year’s show also prompted another discussion. “We’re at a nice stage and the business is running smoothly,” says Lauren. “We have to decide whether we want to go bigger or stay at this comfortable stage.” The friends’ background, they say, is their shared love of textiles. “We’re not business junkies,” adds Genevieve. “We value our personal lives and love designing. We think we’ll let it grow organically.”