The source

LINDA Gregoriou travels the world finding artisinal stuff for her eclectic Sydney shop.

AFTER A two-year stint working as an investment banker at Macquarie Bank and a well publicised legal battle with former PBL director John Alexander regarding her interior designs for his home renovations, Linda Gregoriou wanted a less complicated work life.

So she decided to go into retail and open a homewares shop in partnership with architect Dale Jones-Evans.

There would be no shortage of shopkeepers out there willing to warn anyone looking for a simple, stress-free life to give retail a wide berth but Gregoriou is convinced she has a unique concept for her store in Sydney’s Potts Point. “I’m a consumer and I thought to myself that there must be other people who want good quality things that last and that’s pretty much how it came about,” she says of the genesis of Pure and General.

“It started when I was looking for a timber ironing-board, which might sound a little odd, but I live in the inner city and I have always seen ironing-boards strewn around the streets. I thought to myself: “Where can I get a timber ironing-board that will last?” Gregoriou looked online for one in the UK and then tried France and finally found what she was looking for in Germany. It’s an ironing-board designed by a group of architects and made by handicapped children and she persuaded a friend to bring it back to Australia for her.

It’s that quest to find unique, everyday items that have a sense of authenticity and some enduring quality about them that defines Pure and General. The store took a year to come together from the initial concept as Gregoriou travelled the world looking for products to fill her shelves (and she intends to travel at least four times a year on buying trips to keep it stocked). “I could have spent time going to trade fairs to source things but I get bored when I go into other people’s shops and I can tell where everything has come from,” she says.

“There’s stuff in here from Cyprus, Turkey, Wales, Norway, Denmark, Mexico ... it’s endless. Most of the things are handmade and, in many instances, I have worked directly with the artisans. I worked with a broom-maker in Kyoto and we have brooms and dusters from there; we worked with different artisans in Morocco to make things that don’t look obviously Moroccan, such as some timber knives, forks and spoons that are all hand-carved. There’s only 100 of them and when they go, they’re gone. When summer comes I’m bringing in a whole lot of traditional pig-farmers’ shoes from Majorca and things like espadrilles. We’re not doing fashion at all, it’s just about stuff that has been tried and tested for a long period of time.”

The store is located off the beaten track down a laneway near Kings Cross. “We didn’t want to be on the high street,” says Gregoriou. “This is about discovery.”