An introduction

Well hello!

We are so pleased you’ve popped by.  Many of you already know who we are and why we started Mondocherry, but for those who don’t please read on...

We are sisters, born 22 months apart on the beautiful island of Mauritius. Tough I know! We would rather love to still be on one of the beautiful beaches there but we then moved to Bristol, UK for a couple of years, followed by 4 years in PNG, another short stint in the UK and then finally to Australia where our proper English accents quickly disappeared! We called Hobart home for a few years and then ended up in Brisbane.  Lots of moving, lots of school and lots of great memories!

We didn’t have a TV for most of our early years, and so our super creative mum kept us busy with tie-dying, batik, sewing, and paper cutting.  When we weren’t making things you would often find us setting up a shop of one sort or another, and constantly begging our poor parents and younger brother to purchase things from us. So I guess it is almost inevitable to see where we ended up!

It took a while though. We both went to Uni and studied completely unrelated things. Clare took a Science/Law course while Joy studied and worked as an Early Childhood/Primary Teacher. We got married and moved around with our husbands' work and it wasn’t until we both ended back up in Brisbane with Joy pregnant with her first child and Clare recently having had her 4th, that we thought about starting a business together as artists. Quite a scary thing to do as we had no useful qualifications or experience!  Despite a number of moves since then, both interstate and overseas, and another 4 kids added to the mix between us, our enthusiasm for working with gorgeous colours and creating beautiful interiors has not waned. Clare now lives in Melbourne, where our shop is located and Joy lives in tropical Singapore.  We are both involved in making our unique original artworks, all hand cut and painted with loads of love.

While we are two very different people (as evidenced by the fights we used to have when we shared a room as kids!) creatively we can work as one which seems to be pretty rare.  We can finish each other sentences and will often have exactly the same idea for a new range, window display or Instagram post at exactly the same time. We even have to get our husbands to discuss presents at Christmas and birthdays as we often also buy each other exactly the same gift! We manage to work around the difficulties of running our joint business while not being close with lots and lots of phone conversations.  Lots! 

So what is mondocherry’s look? We are constantly inspired by colour, texture and pattern. We love lots of white, neutrals, natural light and raw materials, together with splashes of colour and personailty. We are big believers in mixing things up, old and new, cheap and quality, pattern and plain, bought and handmade. We love a home that tells a unique story. And we love helping our customers decorate their homes so that they are a unique reflection of the way they live.

We opened our Melbourne shop 6 years ago and have filled it with our own artworks, as well as beauiful products that we love and that pass our test - would we have them in our homes or give them as gifts to our friends and family?

So there you are. Mondocherry in a nutshell.  We are so pleased you are following along with our journey. We hang out on Instagram a lot so follow us there if you don't already. And please do let us know what you would like to see us chat about!

Clare and Joy xx