Let’s wander back a little before we move forward. We’re keen to explore the Reddie genesis story – especially given neither of you hold a background in industrial design.  
Caroline Olah: I guess the seed came when Andrew and I were both living in New York – I was working in architecture and Andrew was at Google … I’d always had a love of furniture and I always had this idea that in commercial furniture there was just something missing. It was always very rigid, or everything’s mass produced, or designer high–end and not versatile. And then there was residential furniture that you couldn’t use in a commercial location.  

There was nothing in the middle …  
CO: That’s right. Look at fashion and brands like APC – you get really clean cuts in the colours and sizes that you want. And so this seed was there and then we moved to Hong Kong and I was like, ‘you know what? I’m just going to try and do it.’  
AO: You were also pregnant so you couldn’t work …  
CO: … Yes, I couldn’t work anyway. And so that kind of forced me to take action. I wrote a business plan and started to try to find a factory willing to do this bespoke business model. And absolutely no one wanted to do it. People wanted one design, mass production. I got completely rejected.  

Is this what ultimately led you to Indonesia?  
CO: Yes. I found this town called Jepara, on the northern coast of Java, where some massive American factories are based. The whole town is the size of the eastern suburbs [of Sydney] and is all furniture on the street, leatherwork, everything. And I found a couple of guys who were willing to make my product.

You eventually land some initial product – how then did you go about the sales process and start on brand awareness and education?  
CO: At first I started designing and selling to friends at cost price. I had 10 simple designs, but people could pick the colours and sizes they wanted.  

And you learnt as you went along?  
CO: Structurally, yes, I learnt to design furniture on the fly and I just designed and started selling out of our apartment in Hong Kong…  
AO: And you spent $2000 on a website …  
CO: … And that was a lot of money to us at the time. The beauty was that our apartment was on a street where there were lots of furniture stores, so going upstairs in a building wasn’t farfetched for someone to do. So every time I got a ring on the doorbell, I’d quickly hide the kids and pretend it was my showroom, even though it was our living room.  

And growth came fairly quickly it would seem?  
CO: I’d always said if I could just make ‘X’ amount of revenue in my first year then I’d ask Andrew to join me. And then he did. And then I thought, well, if I can sell from this apartment and people want to buy it – that was the key and soon after we met the head designer of WeWork. They were exploding through Asia and needed some manufacturers. We ended up winning the contracts and ended up doing 150 offices for them; we pretty much built a big factory from scratch for that contract [in Indonesia], which was almost proof of concept because for them it was like clean designs, natural materials, and they could pick the colours and sizes that they needed for their different locations. And that’s kind of how we got started.  

Well done. Tell us about that initial product suite – in terms of the 10 designs you started with. And why do you think they enabled what was rather immediate cut through?  
CO: Those designs were almost embarrassingly simple. It was like four-legged tables with rounded legs. We did a drum table way back when and it was all just really pared back. But at the time no one was allowing you to tailor and customise with colour and size and material … And when I look at furniture design, I also think there’s a tendency for a lot of designers to think of [each design] as a reflection of themselves: ‘I’m going to put myself into this chair and it’s all about me’. And I just questioned why furniture was like that? I’m not here to win a design award. I just want great pieces that last and that people will use – that’s the award for me, being able to do that. So we have a very different approach to design, we design when there’s a brief or if someone needs something and then it’s a far more community driven and collaborative approach.

Why move things back to Australia – because we imagine that meant starting over in many ways?  
We came back in 2018. We always knew we needed to be an Australian brand with Australian design because Australia’s the best place for design – the design quality here is just so amazing. 

And how’d you go about pushing into what can be a closed-door market – it’s small and tight?  
AO: We came back over the holidays and did a six-week popup in Paddington just to test the market…  
CO: … I think because no one was doing this tailored aspect [of design], we found we could always secure clients in terms of being able to tailor things by material and by size. But we also pounded the pavement and knocked on the doors of every designer in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. And we have a strong story and I feel like as a team we’re good at storytelling and explaining our brand – we really believe in what we’re doing.  

Do you wholesale?  
CO: No, we sell directly to designers. So, we do everything, we own the end-to-end supply chain, we built our factory and we sell it ourselves. And I don’t think the kind of [traditional] retail model really works for us as we only make to order. We’re not like, ‘here’s one static design, let’s make hundreds of them’ – that’s against our ethos of being more sustainable and only making things that people need.  

On that front a lot of what you produce is crafted with reclaimed wood and is also handmade?  
CO: We largely handmake most of our products, yes. And we have to because all of our wood is from old houses and building waste and train tracks and things like that. The guys [in the factory] have to manually remove all the nails, the machines can’t work with it, so there’s no mass [production].  

There’s obvious refinement and elevation in the design and your use of wood – it moves away from expectation when we think of ‘reclaimed’ materials.  
CO: We had to invent a completely new production system to be able to refine teak like this. As you say, usually reclaimed wood can only be made super chunky and not flat and smooth. It’s taken a while to be able to get it to this level. And our aim is to have everything we make made from waste at some point – the metals are the only thing not from waste because [recycled metal] doesn’t exist yet.  

Looking around this wonderful Surry Hills studio, it’s clear the product suite has both broadened and grown somewhat – how many designs are you working with today?  
AO: It’s around 50.  

Impressive. And what about where that product is landing – is it still predominately commercial settings or is there increased interest from the residential side?  
CO: I feel we design for all. But we do focus more on the commercial side as I feel residential has that kind of ‘fast furniture’ element to in needing to be trend driven … There is a residential element, for sure, people are buying it for their homes. But we approach it from a commercial way and that means that we’re not constantly making new things and trying to keep up with the Joneses.  

Good design withstands trends.  
CO: I don’t understand why you would want to do trend furniture because [furniture] is something so permanent in your house. We keep it clean and we keep it classic. And I like the fact that we still sell pieces that we designed on the day we launched.  

As proud Australian-Indonesians do you feel the ‘made in Asia’ perception is slowly changing for the better – what Reddie stands for in design and quality is exemplary.   
AO: It’s changing, but Asian-made is still frowned upon even though some of the most exquisite products are made in China and elsewhere in the region. And a lot of brands don’t openly promote it …  
CO: … Andrew and I are proud of [Indonesia] and the people and the community. And so we’ve been huge advocates in being transparent about [product manufacture]. When we first launched in Australia, we were told not to mention where we made things. But you can be proudly Australian– and proudly Indonesian–made — we need more unity, not polarisation.  

In regard to international markets – are you finding some traction and is offshore an area of future focus?  
AO: The focus has been here in Australia – where we sell mainly on the east coast. But we’ve some partners in Singapore and do things in Southeast Asia. And we feel with our offering there’s opportunities across all markets, especially when we look at what exists in America and in Europe.  
CO: We have clients on both US coasts and also in Texas. And we recently did a trade show in London, Material Matters, and we’re launching in the European market. But we’re still a small team and there’s still so much more we can do on our own doorstep.