Utopia Goods’ homewares take on iconic Australian flora and fauna

Two creatives set out to reclaim images of Australian flora and fauna in their work – and there’s not a cliché in sight.

Utopia Goods’ Bruce Slorach and Sophie Tatlow at their studio in Sydney’s Paddington. Picture: WISH/Nick Cubbin

The first things that come to mind when you think of products decorated with Australian flora and fauna are the tacky souvenirs of a bygone era – clichéd depictions of bottlebrushes, eucalyptus leaves with an odd koala or possum thrown in. They were splashed across tea towels, etched into ashtrays and even on plastic lunch boxes. You would not fill your home with these native designs, whether it be a cushion on your couch or wallpaper in your living room.

But all that has changed, thanks to Sydney-based fabric company Utopia Goods and the couple behind it, Bruce Slorach and Sophie Tatlow. The pair have spent the past decade translating Australian botanicals onto beautiful fabrics, rugs, furniture and homewares and have managed to up-end the kitsch that came before.

“We are subverting the cultural cringe,” Tatlow tells WISH over coffee near their boutique on Oxford Street in Paddington. “If you look at the Liberty print from England, it all about English meadow flowers. Then you have Marimekko, which is all about the Scandinavian landscape. Throughout India and the Middle East, you have this history of appreciating the landscape and the flowers. We started exploring why we haven’t done this in Australia. Is it because of the youth of the country that we have never gone, wow, look at that beautiful landscape?”

Designs from Utopia Goods. Photo: WISH/Nick Cubbin

The couple started Utopia Goods as a result of their work in design around Sydney. Running multidisciplinary practice Deuce Design for more than 20 years, they completed projects from public parks to cinema signage, website design and interiors of historical buildings. They teamed up with architects, landscape designers and heritage experts on design that can be seen across the city and its surrounds.

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Customers in Australia – and around the world – discovered the beauty in the art that Slorach created using botanicals we have all grown up with and often looked past when it came to design.

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“We have done a lot of work around the history of the city and the history of the harbour,” explains Slorach. “We did the new Quay Quarters precinct in Circular Quay, Government House and the Ballast Point Park in Balmain. There is basically no surface design we haven’t poked our noses into over the years. During this time we built up this affection for Australia, Sydney and our harbour. We have a library full of books about it. It felt natural to explore that and see where it went.”

The other factor was that they were constantly looking for fabrics, rugs and furniture that featured Australian botanicals for the jobs they were completing, especially when there was history and heritage involved. “We kept having to find things for all the projects we did with Deuce but they were not there, and if it was there, it was on a lunch box produced by Target,” says Tatlow. “I had said to Bruce many times over the years we need to explore this massive gap in the market. Bruce can paint and draw and I felt we needed to be guiding our own design jobs rather than being guns for hire. As contractors we wanted to be more than just a cog in someone else’s wheel.”

Utopia Goods’ Paddington showroom. Photo: WISH/Nick Cubbin

So they took a risk and opened Utopia Goods in 2002. They started online, selling cushions and tablecloths. Bruce created the designs, inspired by the local flora and fauna, and the fabric was handcrafted in India. At first their friends were a bit shocked they were attempting to sell tablecloths in a country where minimalism had well and truly set in when it came to residential interiors.

Tatlow and Slorach mortgaged their house to fund their new venture and were pursuing it while also running Deuce Designs. “We only did $10,000 a year for the first few years and I remember Bruce and I thinking, what have we done?” recalls Tatlow. “We also had the design studio so we were working like lunatics, and on top of that we also had our children.

“We were pitching high though; we wanted to see ourselves as something like Aesop or Dinosaur Designs – an international brand that was underpinned by Australianess but not defined by it.”

The business kept slowly building as customers in Australia – and around the world – discovered the beauty in the art that Slorach created using botanicals we have all grown up with and often looked past when it came to design. “You have to lean into the idea that something is on the edge of being clichéd,” he explains. “You have to celebrate the beauty and wonder of it rather than worry about the bad versions you have seen, and there have been so many bad versions of native flora.

Utopia Goods, Paddington. Photo: WISH/Nick Cubbin

“One of the prints we do is a bottlebrush and that is a really traditional Indian repeat pattern. The motif is Australian but you are diverting people’s minds and they think, wow, that is really beautiful pattern but wait a minute, that’s a bottlebrush!”

The couple did a few pop-up stores, and then finally opened a studio and shop on Oxford Street in 2017. Slorach creates his art upstairs in the old terrace and downstairs is a showroom that displays the beautiful Utopia Goods designs. WISH visited Slorach in his studio on a Wednesday in Sydney’s never-ending summer and the fan was ineffectively blowing warm air around the space. Working on a stunning eucalyptus painting with a dark navy background, the artist was surrounded by bunches of dried native plants hanging from the ceiling; dozens of prints of other flowers were on the noticeboard. Piles of drawings and prints sat next to paints.

Not only does the Oxford Street studio provide a dedicated place for Slorach to work in but it has also transformed the business. Fabric has since become the centerpiece of Utopia Goods and it receives orders from interior architects locally and globally to create upholstery and drapes for homes. The couple also worked with mills to develop a performance fabric made from 70 per cent recycled materials that has an inbuilt stain guard. It is used in hospitality and commercial venues.

Bruce Slorach at work in his studio. Photo: WISH/Nick Cubbin

“Now for us it is the combination of doing the actual textiles and manufacturing them into things,” says Tatlow of this evolution. “Last year we introduced rugs and carpets and a small collection of furniture that we manufacture. We also do drapery and bed linen. Someone asked us to do an artwork and we suggested a rug as a wall hanging. It is based on the Tree of Life motif, two metres long, and it’s being made in India now. It has taken over a year and there are multiple guys working on it every day. It is mind-bending how beautiful it is and it takes six weeks just to wash and dry it.”

The success the pair has achieved means they don’t have to work seven days a week anymore, have enjoyed year-on-year growth and are celebrating a decade in business. There is also the wonderful feedback from customers here and around the world – especially expats – for their designs and the memories certain flowers hold for Australians. They have even ventured into the world of the dreaded tea towel and turned what had become clichéd into something beautiful to hang on your oven door.

Bruce Slorach creating a design. Photo: WISH/Nick Cubbin

“We also want to draw attention to our landscape and bush,” explains Tatlow of their aim at Utopia Goods. “Making people aware of something is another way of looking after something without shoving it down their throats. So many people have told us they didn’t know the difference between a banksia and a warratah but they do now after seeing it every night on a napkin at home.”