Friendship and a shared love of art and design were at the heart of the formation of Dinosaur Designs when in 1985 three art school students, Louise Olsen, Stephen Ormandy and Liane Rossler, banded together to sell jewellery and textiles at a market in Sydney.
"At the Paddington Markets our worst day was 10 bucks," laughs Ormandy. "At the end of that day we were sitting in Hot Gossip cafe having three hot chocolates – that was the 10 bucks. But we continued to turn up to the markets and that's why we're still here today, we just continue turning up."
The commitment has paid off. Three decades after starting out, Olsen and Ormandy now run a business that includes eight stores across three continents, a growing online store, and a design and manufacturing studio. It employs nearly 90 people, over half of whom make homewares and jewellery daily. The company may have grown, but creativity in the Sydney studio, where each collection is created from start to finish, remains at the heart of the business.
"The studio is our heart and the starting point from which everything grows," says Ormandy. "It's the birthplace of creativity; it's like a maternity hospital for ideas," he jokes.
A sense of energy and positivity pervades the light and airy space filled with a kaleidoscope of brightly coloured resin and crafts people casting moulds, polishing objects and stringing beads.
Happy culture
"It's a very vibrant and happy culture here because you can't create in a culture that is inhibitive or stifling," says Ormandy.
It was a shared passion for creativity that brought Olsen, Ormandy and Rossler together while studying at the City Art Institute in Sydney (now UNSW Art and Design). They decided to start a business with the simple aim of paying for their art supplies. Demand for their joyous, colourful resin jewellery was immediate, and the trio was on its way. In 1989 they opened the first Dinosaur Designs store in Sydney's Strand Arcade, and by the end of that year Australian celebrities including Michael Hutchence, Kylie Minogue, Kate Ceberano and Elle Macpherson were all wearing Dinosaur Designs.
"Michael Hutchence would pull up on his Harley outside the Oxford Street store, and [his then girlfriend] Helena Christensen would hop off to buy some gifts, then pop the Dinosaur Designs bags on her arm and hop back on the Harley," says Ormandy.
Growth continued in the 1990s, but one risk they took which didn't work out as planned was an early foray into metal accessories. As Ormandy succinctly describes it, "Belt buckles nearly sent us broke."
It was a tough lesson but new things continued in the 1990s, with the opening of a second store on Oxford Street then another store in Melbourne's South Yarra, followed over a decade later by a store in the Melbourne CBD in 2011, then in Brisbane in 2012.
A couple in the personal sense as well as the professional sense, Olsen and Ormandy have worked throughout their career to maintain a work/life balance.
"Living and working together isn't a problem for us," says Olsen. "You can close the studio door and walk away; you don't always take that design issue or that business issue home. It's not like it's a bad subject that you have to avoid, it can be exciting and it can be fun. There are stresses with it, but we can rise above it."
Nerves tested
It's a strategy that's served them well as the business has grown from a group of students using their income for art materials to a company with international sales and stores around the world.
"You've got to have courage to constantly back yourself," says Ormandy of the evolution. "You have to hold your nerve."
Their nerves were severely tested when, in 2001, just after signing a lease on a new store in New York, the city was hit with the tragedy of the attack on the World Trade Centre.
"Choosing to open in New York was extremely bad timing for us, but it was one of those situations that you couldn't possibly have anticipated," says Ormandy. "It would have been a very good time for us to pull out because it affected every part of our business, but we stuck with it and we've been lucky to see how the city has pulled itself back, rebuilt and prospered."
Dinosaur Designs has also prospered, with the opening of a London store in 2014.
While Rossler left the company in 2010 to work on other creative projects, she retains a one-third share of the company, which maintains a commitment to making in Australia.
"Standing up and doing something you believe in; not just design, but the way the pieces are made, making sure we still hand make pieces, creating employment, is something that takes a lot of energy," says Ormandy.
Says Olsen: "Sure it takes a lot of energy and positivity, but that's part of the deal. If you don't have the energy for yourself, if you can't create the joy in what you do, how can you inspire other people?"
This is an edited extract from The Art of Dinosaur Designs by Louise Olsen and Stephen Ormandy, published by Lantern.
Need to know
What A debut exhibition, The Art of Dinosaur Designs, will celebrate Louise Olsen & Stephen Ormandy's 30-year creative partnership with a series of large-scale sculptural forms fusing art, design and fashion
Where Bega Regional Gallery
When October 14 to December 3
Not For Syndication
