Launceston’s Best Homewares Shopping
For a little-ish city at the bottom of the world, Launceston boasts more quality homewares and design stores per capita than most of its mainland counterparts. Here are the must-visit stores for your next northern shopping recce.
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HOPE & ME
Mother and daughter duo Lindi and Chelsea opened their much-loved Launceston boutique in 2009, later taking the opportunity to expand their reach in a new larger space in 2015. Hope & Me continues to call that new Quadrant Mall location its home, and - from it - invites visitors to add beauty and personality to their own homes with its impressive range of homewares and lifestyle products. With a predominant focus on designers hailing from Tasmania, Australia and New Zealand, you’ll find much-loved brands like Status Anxiety, Who is Elijah and Frank Green, alongside lesser-known but equally lovely local makers. A hand-selected curation of products for new mums makes Hope & Me a one-stop destination for baby shower gifting, and the theme continues with a bevy of bespoke baby and children’s items, including hand-made blankets, clothing and toys.
18 Quadrant Mall, Launceston
Monday-Friday 10am-4pm
Saturday 10am-2pm
Hope & Me (image: Kelly Slater)
ECOCO
ecoco owner Di and her team manage to strike the elusive balance between showcasing a veritable cornucopia of objects and ornaments, and creating a total sense of calm. Though you’ll be spoilt for choice amongst the store’s many rugs, lamps, books, linens, wearable designs and more, this is a destination that is as much about retail therapy as it is about enjoying life’s most precious pleasures. Take inspiration from ecoco’s many styled nooks, where a cream boucle chair might find its place next to a simple timber coffee table set with vintage-style glassware and glass cloche-covered candles. Here, it all just works. Plus, as one of Tasmania’s largest stockists of cult luxury skincare brand Aesop, a visit to ecoco is always an exquisite olfactory experience, and you’ll be hard pressed to walk away without your own tube of something very special.
51 Balfour Street, Launceston
Monday-Friday 10am-5pm
Saturday 10am-2pm
Ecoco (image: Instagram)
INSIDE HOME & GIFTS
Exposed internal brick sits pretty against clean white walls at Inside Home & Gifts, and it’s a design story that extends to a diverse - but always special - range of Tasmanian and international products. Since 2012, the store has made good on its vision to bring an authentic boutique experience to Launceston, and is now proudly home to some of the most exclusive brands from Australia and beyond. Make like a celeb in a pair of Otra Eyewear shades, post your dinner to Instagram with Marimekko’s joyous tableware, and feel fancy after dark with luxurious Kip&Co silk pyjamas. With every item lovingly stocked for its feel-good power, it’s more than okay to give these gifts to yourself.
10-14 Paterson Street, Launceston
Monday-Friday 9am-4pm
Saturday 9am-2pm
Marimekko at Inside Home & Gifts (image: Instagram)
THE STORE @ DESIGN TASMANIA
As Tasmania’s leading centre for design, Design Tasmania hosts exceptional permanent displays, alongside changing exhibitions by local designer-makers. Its adjacent Store similarly showcases Tasmanian talent, with a collection of homewares, furniture and jewellery ready to find their new home. Many pieces are one-of-a-kind, and might range from tiny silver earrings to an imposing Tasmanian Oak coffee table, each with its own unique story to tell. As part of the Collect Art Purchase Scheme, The Store @ Design Tasmania offers 12-month interest-free loans on purchases of work by contemporary Tasmanian artists and designers (conditions apply), so your new piece will look as good in your home as it does in your bank account.
Corner of Brisbane and Tamar Streets, Launceston
Wednesday-Saturday 10am-3pm
Sunday 10am-2pm
The Store @ Design Tasmania (image: Design Tasmania)
LOFT ON ST JOHN
Near the centre of Launceston’s often bustling CBD, Loft on St John is an oasis of beautiful things for you and your people. Each piece of clothing, item for the home, and gift for the lucky recipient is carefully chosen with a focus on quality and longevity, with a nod to ethical and eco-friendly practices along the way. For the capsule wardrobe enthusiast, classic pieces in linen and natural fibres are curated for their versatility with a favourite pair of jeans, and the look is usually best completed with your favourite headpiece from the in-store range of Will & Bear hats. High-quality skincare and natural cleaning products are also front and centre, and the home kitchen gets its glow-up with the always on-trend al.ive range of dish wash, hand wash and bench sprays, and kitchenware from Ecology.
1/121 Cimitiere Street, Launceston
Monday-Friday 10am-5pm
Saturday 10am-2pm
Will & Bear at Loft on St John (image: Instagram)
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