MASTORIES10
Kate and Hayley we are intrigued to know more about you both.
We're sisters and best mates who somehow turned our love of colour, creativity, and everyday joy into a business. Kip&Co started over a decade ago around our kitchen table with a simple idea: bedding that wasn't beige or boring. We wanted it to feel alive, like fashion for your home. It's grown wildly since then into this bright, beautiful, sometimes chaotic world of design – our House of Colour. It's been a wild ride, full of love, laughter, and the occasional sister squabble. And thanks to Alex, my uni best mate and the third co-founder. She helps balance us when the sister thing takes over.
How do your roles at Kip & Co complement each other, and does being sisters make the partnership easier or harder?
Like any sisters, we balance each other beautifully – and sometimes drive each other mad! While we creatively direct and design everything together, I bring a bit more of the strategy, planning and detail (I am a numbers gal), while Hayley brings the big-picture brand management, creative drive and vision. The sibling bond gives us trust and a quick shorthand that's impossible to fake. Alex jokes we share a brain. We can have a 30-second conversation that covers what would take anyone else an hour. But we're also human – we disagree, we laugh, we cry, we get it done. That's the beauty of it.
What drew you to collaborate with Mihan Aromatics on Soul Nectar, and how does it align with the Kip & Co ethos?
We've adored Mihan Aromatics for ages after spotting them in the StandardX Hotel, which is our home away from home when we need a few city nights for work. Their approach to fragrance is so artful and deeply Australian. They build scent the way we build colour stories: with emotion, place, and memory. The collaboration just made perfect sense. We wanted to create something that captured the spirit of Kip&Co – a fragrance that feels like sunshine, optimism, and warmth, with the grit of Indian warmth and the street markets that we live for. Soul Nectar is that bottled – it's our first step into the world of scent, and Mihan were the perfect creative soulmates to bring it to life.
How did you translate Kip & Co's bold visual aesthetic into a fragrance?
For us, scent is another kind of storytelling. When we design prints, we're thinking about mood – the joy of colour, the balance of energy, the emotion it sparks. Creating Soul Nectar was the same. We wanted layers that feel like sunshine on skin – golden warmth, a whisper of spice, the softness of florals, and a little salt in the air. Mihan helped us turn those feelings into notes. It's vibrant yet grounded, with that Kip&Co spark running through it.
Before Soul Nectar, which Mihan Aromatics parfum resonated most with you both, and why?
Kate: Sienna Brume – it's nostalgic and soulful, like a memory you can't quite place.
Hayley: Mikado Bark – that balance of earthiness and warmth feels really connected to nature and family to me. Mihan scents have a poetry to them, which we love.
Can you each share a specific scent memory that holds a special place for you?
Kate - For me, it's the smell of the ocean – salty, clean, alive. It instantly transports me to summers at the beach with family, sandy feet and sunburnt noses.
Hayley - A scent that I'll never forget is the smell of India that hits you the second you step off the plane. The heat, the ripe fruit, the sweat, the grit, the ground, the earth. It's unforgettable and I absolutely love it.
Kip & Co engages people through colour, texture, and pattern. How do you see scent fitting into the sensory world you've created? Does aroma play a role in your design process or brand experience?
Absolutely. We've always designed Kip&Co to be immersive – we want people to feel joy, warmth, play, and comfort when they're surrounded by our products. Scent was the missing piece – it evokes mood instantly. The way a room smells can change how you feel in it, just like colour can. With Soul Nectar, we wanted to round out the sensory experience of Kip&Co – so now you can wrap yourself in our colours and our scent.
How do you balance motherhood, business, and creativity? Any advice for others in similar partnerships?
Balance is a myth – it's more of a dance! Some days are magic, some days are messy. We try to stay grateful, genuine, honest, and flexible. Family comes first, always. We've learned to lean on each other, trust our team, and protect creative time. Our advice: find joy in the juggle, and don't chase perfection. It's overrated.
Soul Nectar is described as "sunshine, bottled" and inspired by Jaipur. Tell us more about the inspiration behind this scent.
Soul Nectar was born from our love of sweet sunshine and divine India – that sense of radiance and calm you feel when you're bathed in golden light. It's about optimism, sensuality, and warmth. We wanted it to smell like confidence, connection, and joy – like that perfect golden hour where everything glows. There are notes of spice, honey, subtle florals, ripe fruit, and sweat – it's sensual and spirited, yet grounding. It's a scent that carries emotion, like all our favourite things do.
You both travelled to India with your family to shoot Soul Nectar late last year. What was it like exploring the vibrant markets, colours, and energy of Jaipur? How did that experience shape the vision for this parfum and campaign?
Jaipur is colour in motion – it's everything Kip&Co stands for. The markets, the chaos, the beauty, the craft – it's intoxicating. Shooting Soul Nectar there felt like the perfect fusion of our worlds. The campaign captures that radiance: sweat on skin, the juxtaposition of grit and beauty, the golden light, the balance of chaos and calm. It's a celebration of life – and that's exactly what we wanted the perfume to evoke. India is endlessly inspiring; it fills your creative cup to overflowing.
