Meet & Greet: Salt Country
There are siblings who still at the age of 30 have an invisible line down the couch marking enemy territory. Then there are Anna and Simon Mould, who joined forces to form the label Salt Country and even answer interview questions together. But it hasn’t always been calm waters. Growing up, they admit they had “a pretty standard level of sibling-on-sibling violence” and mostly fought over “perceived injustices, usually involving food”. Nowadays it’s false memories that get the gloves out. “There are a few incidents in our history of which we have wildly differing accounts and to this day will swear blind that the other is the one who remembers wrong,” says Anna and Simon.
It took leaving school and working together at a summer camp in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York to realise, ‘Hey, you’re alright’. It was also where the idea for Salt Country first hatched. After being inspired by how passionate people were about the place, the community and the environment around them, Anna and Simon say they wanted “to work out how to develop that deep kind of place connection back home in Australia”. Salt Country draws from Australia’s varied flora and fauna turning it into delicately hand-stitched Grevillea flowers and laughing Kookaburra patches, T-shirts, hats and sewing kits. “Landscapes in Australia are so diverse and beautiful, and people have all kinds of ways of connecting with places that are important to them,” says Anna and Simon. “Souvenirs are powerful icons of place and our products play off the kitsch Australiana of our childhood family holidays to country towns. We make things that help people think about and express their sense of place and Australian identity without being all weird and nationalistic.”
The end goal? “Ultimately, we want to be part of the movement that is helping people to love and feel proud of our country. Linda Jackson, Jenny Kee, Ken Done and others were incredible pioneers of Australian art and design in the ’80s and they’ve left an important legacy. There’s such a strong Australiana revival happening right now and we would like to help carry the torch for our generation.”
salt-country.com / @saltcountry
