Interview Series - Walter G for Cadrys

April 30, 2018

Welcome to part 2 of our Interview Series, this week we interview the very talented team at Walter G, we take you through their friendship and love affair for block printing, not to mention the pending launch of their rug collection exclusively with Cadrys. We hope you enjoy…

Best friends to business partners, tell us about how Walter G came about?

We met in Year 7 in Sydney’s North. During and after university – we travelled extensively, particularly to places known for their textiles such as South America and Vietnam. Lauren travelled to India to do an internship as part of her degree, and Gen went to visit several times. We completely fell in love with it and the idea that they could start a textile company was born. We then moved to India for 6 months and immersed ourselves, learning everything that we could about indigo and block printing techniques living in tiny and remote villages. Upon returning to Australia, sadly both of our grandfathers Walter and George passed at a similar time. Walter G is named in their honour and the business was officially launched at Life Instyle in Sydney in 2012

Who/What has been your biggest inspiration in this field?

Being in this particular field means that we are constantly surrounded by extremely creative and inspiring people. However, if we had to pick one person who has been a constant inspiration to both of us throughout the Walter G textile journey, it would be Sally Campbell. Her textile prowess aside, Sally has the most unique way of transporting you to an ancient city or space, opening our eyes to the amazing back story of everyday objects, food, textiles and places.

What has been your career highlight?

The first sale from our debut range will forever be one of the great highlights of our careers. We had spent 6 months living off $5 a day and poured every last cent, tear and hope into that range – and peoples’ response was completely overwhelming. It was probably at that point that our dream of turning our passion into a business really crystallised. Now 6 years on, we are coming up to another great highlight – the recently collaboration with Cadrys. At the risk of sounding clichéd – we have long dreamed of doing a rug collection but knew that it was beyond our technical scope. So, to be teaming up with Australia’s premier rug producers to create a range that fuses both our skill sets and celebrates our shared love of ancient textile crafts, is truly a career highlight.