Published on : Friday, December 13, 2013
Eaststyle Furniture began in 1956 as a small business located in Wolseley Parade in Kensington, Victoria. Post-war Australia was entering a golden consumer boom and protective tariffs on furniture and a strong European market helped to boost manufacturing.
A resourceful 23-year-old Geoff Eastmure applied his upholstery skills to recovering and refurbishing old lounge-suites to sell to a number of the local auction houses, with the quality of his work bringing repeat sales and giving him sufficient economy of scale to enable the purchase of frames and materials. This resulted in the batch production of ten chairs at a time, impressive by 1950s standards.
As a well-known player for the North Melbourne football club, Geoff used his networking skills to build a regular customer base in the local area. Word-of-mouth referrals helped to build the business and he soon purchased a utility so he could make bigger deliveries further afield. With further growth in business, Geoff purchased two houses in Rockeby Street, Collingwood which he restructured to provide space to produce furniture on a grander scale.
Tags: Eaststyle Furniture, European market, Geoff Eastmure, refurbishing old lounge-suites, Wolseley Parade in Kensington
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