Words By Lauren Molloy
There is a certain kind of magic in the objects we live with.
The tablecloth that becomes part of a long lunch tradition.
The tote that carries fruit home from the market.
The picnic rug that returns, year after year, to the same patch of grass.
These are the quiet pieces that shape a life.
It feels like yesterday, but the year was 2023.
I remember speaking with Sunshine Coast photographer and creative director Taylah Golden as she was developing something new. At the time it was still an idea taking shape quietly in the background of her photography career, working on sketches, textiles, testing fabrics and refining ceramics.
She told me she was building a brand called Olive’s House.
Even then, it felt special.
Today that idea finally opens its doors.
Launching this week, Olive’s House is a lifestyle brand of homewares and wearables designed for slow living. It is a curated collection of picnic rugs, tablecloths, ceramics and everyday pieces intended to quietly elevate the rituals of daily life.
The House That Inspired It
To understand Olive’s House, you have to start with its name.
The brand is named after Taylah’s great-grandmother, Olive, a woman whose home shaped some of her earliest creative memories.
“I spent a lot of time at her house when I was young,” Taylah told me recently. “It’s where I learnt to sew, to grow flowers, to make biscuits… and to eat sugar straight from a teaspoon!”
When the concept for the brand began forming, Taylah knew she wanted it to feel like a place rather than simply a label.
A house.
Somewhere warm, lived-in and welcoming.
In many ways, that sentiment sits at the centre of the brand’s philosophy – that the objects we live with shape the feeling of home.
Because as Taylah so beautifully puts it, a house is simply an empty vessel until we fill it.
All Media Supplied: Taylah Golden
A European Rythm
The aesthetic language of Olive’s House draws deeply from Europe, particularly Italy and Portugal – two places Taylah has spent time photographing and gathering inspiration.
Much of the collection imagery was captured in Puglia, where whitewashed stone walls and long outdoor tables frame the textiles in warm Mediterranean light. Other pieces were photographed in Lisbon and along the Portuguese coast, where ceramic details and tiled facades inform the palette.
Then, closer to home, the collection returns to Noosa, tying together the brand’s influences with the relaxed coastal rhythm of the Sunshine Coast.
Across all three locations, the feeling is the same.
Long lunches. Linen on tables. The ease of days that unfold slowly.
The Beauty of the Small Luxury
For Taylah, Olive’s House began with a simple observation.
One day she passed a warehouse sale for a furniture store and saw a line of people wrapping around the block.
It sparked an idea.
Not everyone can buy the designer dining table.
But they might choose the tablecloth that dresses it.
That idea – the “smaller luxury” – sits at the heart of Olive’s House.
Rather than focusing on large furniture pieces, the collection celebrates the objects that quietly shape a space: textiles, ceramics, picnic rugs, totes and accessories designed to be used every day.
Pieces that become part of routines.
Pieces that travel with you through life.
Designed Slowly
Every item in the collection has been designed by Taylah herself.
Over the past three years she has worked through extensive material testing, refining patterns and developing prints until each piece felt right.
Natural fibres sit at the core of the range (cotton, linen or blends of the two), selected for their durability, softness and ability to age beautifully over time.
The tablecloths are intentionally rectangular, designed around the natural widths of the fabric so that textile waste is minimised during production.
Even the branding and packaging by B-G Studio carries this thinking forward.
Rather than disposable inserts, each parcel includes a seasonal recipe card designed to be kept – the first inspired by an Italian dish of broad beans, cheese and chilli.
It’s a small detail, but a meaningful one.
The First Collection
The debut Olive’s House collection introduces a carefully considered mix of homewares and wearables.
Tablecloths appear in striped, panelled and geometric prints across cotton and linen fabrics.
Picnic rugs combine linen and cotton with a padded interior, designed for everything from beaches to rocky headlands, and roll neatly into a self-tied bundle.
Ceramic wine buckets bring a playful Mediterranean spirit to outdoor tables.
And the wearables collection includes embroidered canvas totes, a bouquet cap and a beautifully draped sarong designed to move effortlessly between beach and long lunch.
Throughout the range, one motif quietly repeats – the cosmos flower.
A bloom Taylah has grown in her own garden, photographed, painted and eventually embroidered into the designs. The first Olive’s House collection also features a collaboration with artist Brigitte Grant.
The two friends have spent many afternoons sharing pasta and wine together, and it felt only natural that their first collection would come together in the same spirit.
Brigitte’s hand-painted illustrations appear across linen tablecloths, evoking the playful iconography of European summer holidays.
There is something rare about brands that grow slowly.
Three years of development might seem unusual in today’s fast-paced design cycle, but it feels entirely appropriate for Olive’s House.
Because the brand itself is about slowing down.
About living well with fewer, better things.
About the quiet beauty a table set for friends, a rug rolled up for a beach afternoon, or a tote carried to the market on a Sunday morning.
And perhaps most importantly, about creating the kind of objects that make someone pause, look around their space, and think: “I love it here.”
Olive’s House launches today, with a limited first release – the beginning of what feels like a very considered journey.
For those familiar with Taylah’s work, the project feels like a natural evolution. With more than a decade of experience as a photographer and creative director, she has built a career crafting refined visual narratives across editorial, campaign and commercial work. Her portfolio spans fashion and lifestyle imagery, including collaborations with brands such as Ellison Studios alongside Amanda Shadforth, Hermès Beauty with Hayley Bonham, and a wide range of fashion and lifestyle campaigns both in Australia and internationally.
And yet, even knowing the breadth of her creative practice, House still feels like something quietly remarkable.
As both a professional acquaintance and a friend, Taylah has a way of continually surprising me. Not just with the ideas she sets her sights on, but with the clarity and poise with which she brings them to life. There is a thoughtful creativity in the way she approaches the world, and a deep understanding of the spaces we live in, both physically and culturally.
Olive’s House feels like a natural extension of that perspective.
A brand built slowly, carefully and with intention.
And like any good house, Olive’s House feels like somewhere you’ll want to return to again and again.
Olive’s House launches 11th March
Limited first collection available at www.olives.house
Written by Bailey Doyle Drone & Videography by Timothy Birch – Photography by Taylah Golden
