My suburb is an undiscovered slice of fresh air, and locals like it that way
When I tell people I live in Parkdale, I've come to expect a blank stare. They don't know where you're talking about.
Sometimes, there will be a flare of recognition and then, 'Oh yeah, just by Melbourne Uni, yeah?' No, that's Parkville. It probably doesn't help that Parkdale has no actual parks of note, but was named 100 years ago after landowner William Parker.
I next throw a few close-by suburbs or places at them. In between Mentone and Mordialloc? Beaumaris? Moorabbin airport? One of the beachside ' dales '? Oh yes, now they know where I'm talking about. Right by the bay, Beach Road, sea and sand, long walks on the beach, cyclists. Lovely. Yes, it is.
It's all right that people don't know where Parkdale is. I think Parkdalians (this may or may not be the correct collective term, but I like it) prefer it that way. It's our little undiscovered slice of Melbourne suburbia that we would prefer to keep as is. A five-minute drive from Southland shopping centre and Moorabbin DFO. A Frankston line train station along Parkers Road. More cafes along the Parkdale shopping strip than a dog-walker can shake a dog-ball thrower at. The beach, the sea air, the seaside pathways encourage people to get out and about – so many healthy people, it would almost make you sick, if you weren't one of them joining in.
Parkdale is ensconced among the industrial estates of nearby Braeside, Mordialloc and Moorabbin. People don't always appreciate the ecosystem of small industries and businesses that operates in these backstreets of affordable-rent workshops, garages and display rooms. Trophy stores, garage door parts, chocolate wholesalers, microbreweries and gin distilleries, furniture upholsterers – it's a piece of what remains of Australian small-scale manufacturing and retail.
These are not the only growth industries in and around Parkdale. There seem to be a lot of primary and secondary schools in the area – state, Catholic and independent (these you can pick as they advertise their ATAR scores on billboards). All of these schools are excellent in their own way. For our busy family with three children, the decision came down to whether the kids could walk themselves to and from school. Believe me, when you see the long lines of traffic on Warrigal and Beach roads, with tired-looking parents picking up their tired-looking kids from school, it's a wise decision for all involved.
As someone who grew up in country Victoria, with 90 minutes of school bus travel a day, I appreciate how accessible things are in Parkdale. Whether it's a beer or a coffee or a feed, everything is a few minutes' walk, and diverse foods are just a 15-minute drive at Springvale, Noble Park, Dandenong, Clayton or Oakleigh. On Friday nights, my mates and I used to drive from the country into Melbourne, a four-hour roundtrip, just to buy a souvlaki on Chapel Street and gawk at the crowds. Yes, we were bored in the country.
Parkdale isn't perfect, of course. Before coming here, my wife (Vietnamese) and I (Maori) lived for some time in Keysborough, a more diverse suburb about 10 to 15 minutes to the east. Parkdale was a bit of a shock for us – a more 'traditional' Aussie suburb, with mainly traditional Aussies living there. Of course, everyone welcomed us to Parkdale, with a generosity of spirit. When you're out walking, it's lovely to receive friendly hellos from passers-by – especially when you haven't always had it.
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Johnson turned the opportunity into a springboard. Her three-women team currently has 20 jobs on the go that range from overhauling a seven-bedroom home in Vaucluse to fitting new wardrobes in a child's bedroom. Johnson also runs a Paddington antiques shop that she opened in 2015. Each year she trawls the antique fairs in France, Italy and Spain for stock, shipping back five 12-metre-long containers laden with new (old) treasures. Sitting with her, I get the same pang of unease you get from too much Instagram, when you inadvertently compare your own reality to glimpses of the unattainable. It's not just her jet-set lifestyle. My kids are the same age as Johnson's, and we've twice had to get our sofa reupholstered due to peanut-butter stains and worse. How is her white sofa so pristine? 'We've always made sure the covers can be slipped off and cleaned,' she shrugs. What about the juggle of raising two children while running an internationally successful business? 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Locally, her work ranges from the Byron Bay hotel, Raes on Wategos, to the Bondi store of jewellery designer Lucy Folk, while international jobs include a Dubai members club and Frank Sinatra's former Hollywood office. In 2021, publisher Rizzoli New York released her first book, Tamsin Johnson: Spaces for Living, while a second is now in the works. 'Tamsin is a true artist,' says Nick Smart, the fragrance entrepreneur behind the Libertine Parfumerie boutiques. He enlisted her to design his Paddington flagship store, which includes parquetry flooring and antique marble basins from France. The cost of decorating the 200-square-metre space exceeded $1 million, but Smart is keen to use Johnson again. 'People emulate Tamsin's style, but they don't make it look good,' he says. 'She puts together pieces from different eras in a breathtaking way.' 'Tactful disharmony' is how Johnson describes her mix-and-match approach. 'It's about finding the balance of elements that might not have necessarily worked together – the old and the new, the pristine and the slightly messy, the weird and the super polished.' She points above her fireplace to a contemporary mirror whose jagged edges counter the curves of an antique bronze nude. Similarly, offbeat notes pepper Johnson's own look. Tall and slender in a floaty, pinstripe shirt and cream slacks, she sports a jumble of accessories, including a Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso watch in burgundy, a diamond tennis bracelet, and a mishmash of rings that includes vintage sapphires and a dark-green bloodstone. Her husband, Patrick Johnson, is also a tastemaker. In 2009, the 44-year-old launched his P. Johnson tailoring brand that today also encompasses womenswear, and has expanded to 10 shops as far afield as London and New York. The couple have two children, Arthur, 8, and Bunny, 7, but parenthood hasn't curbed their panache. Damien Woolnough, fashion editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, believes the pair's aspirational image – the holidays in Tuscany, the artworks, the clothes – feeds into P. Johnson's appeal. 'You so want to be them, and that lifestyle justifies the price as much as the cut and fabrics.' In one showroom, an antique chandelier beams onto a portrait of André the Giant. Johnson decorates her husband's showrooms to evoke a refined but playful mood of relaxed hospitality. In the Windsor location in Melbourne, for example, an antique chandelier beams onto a portrait of the late pro wrestler, André the Giant. 'I never wanted spaces that were all old wood and leather, like a traditional English tailoring shop,' Patrick says. 'I wanted the interiors to be an extension of our lives and the things we found beautiful. I wanted people to feel like they're coming into our home.' Johnson's eye for an art-deco sideboard also started at home. Her parents, Edward and Peta Clark, were successful antique dealers, and she grew up in Melbourne playing beneath Louis XV sofas and Venetian gilt mirrors. Her father's big break had come in 1974, when he negotiated a huge sale from the Maharajah of Mysore that included a lavish collection of royal carriages. 'I made a few bob and I've lived on that ever since, really,' Clark admits. The proceeds bought the family's former home, the converted Golden Crust bakery in Armadale, that Domain describes as one of 'Melbourne's truly great homes'. From a young age, Johnson and her sister Tess accompanied their parents on buying trips to Paris markets and Rome galleries. 'Subconsciously, I was learning, not just about furniture and antiques, but about selling as well,' Johnson reflects. She instinctively mastered the latter. When she was eight, her father recalls taking her to Camberwell market, where Johnson bought a gold bracelet for $5. 'An hour later, she resold it from my stall to a lady for $15.' Lauren Kozica, a high-school friend from Wesley College, remembers Johnson constantly hurling herself into extracurricular projects. 'Tamsin's always had the energy and stamina most people search for in a tablet.' As a teen, Johnson took sewing classes and began tie-dying petticoats and making her own clothes. By 18, she'd sold a line of beaded necklaces to Scanlan Theodore. That early win encouraged her to study fashion at RMIT; she then clinched an internship in London at Stella McCartney. After-wards, Johnson got a job with a London PR firm and during that period, she met her future husband in a pub. 'She just radiated this energy, this brightness,' Patrick says of his first impression. Raised on a 4000-hectare farm north of Adelaide, Patrick had already been in London for six years and was working for Robert Emmett, a high-end shirtmaker on Jermyn Street. Tamsin, meanwhile, was turning away from fashion. Recognising her sartorial taste would never be sufficiently edgy to stand out, she enrolled in a course at Inchbald School of Design in Chelsea: 'The minute I walked in, I was like: 'This is absolutely my field.' ' In 2009, the pair returned to Australia. While Patrick set up his tailoring business, Johnson got an interior design job at Sydney practice, Meacham Nockles McQualter. 'When Tam arrived she was well-travelled, with a broad knowledge of the history of art, design and architecture, which enabled her to develop designs with a distinctive language,' says her former boss, Don McQualter. Johnson credits her four-year stint with teaching her the fundamentals of her profession. But in 2013, she resigned to go out on her own. 'It wasn't a surprise,' says McQualter. Loading Her first job as a sole practitioner was with one of Patrick's tailoring clients, and in a business where social cachet matters, it proved to be heaven-sent. The Bondi home belonged to James Packer. Johnson turned the opportunity into a springboard. Her three-women team currently has 20 jobs on the go that range from overhauling a seven-bedroom home in Vaucluse to fitting new wardrobes in a child's bedroom. Johnson also runs a Paddington antiques shop that she opened in 2015. Each year she trawls the antique fairs in France, Italy and Spain for stock, shipping back five 12-metre-long containers laden with new (old) treasures. Sitting with her, I get the same pang of unease you get from too much Instagram, when you inadvertently compare your own reality to glimpses of the unattainable. It's not just her jet-set lifestyle. My kids are the same age as Johnson's, and we've twice had to get our sofa reupholstered due to peanut-butter stains and worse. How is her white sofa so pristine? 'We've always made sure the covers can be slipped off and cleaned,' she shrugs. What about the juggle of raising two children while running an internationally successful business? The family has help on Mondays and Tuesdays, when a nanny collects the kids from school, but Johnson admits to being pathologically efficient: 'If I've got something on my to-do list, I need to get it done. On holidays, I'll write an itinerary that Patch [Patrick] jokes is down to the minute.' As if to validate her working-mum credentials, Johnson's phone rings. It's her daughter's school: Bunny has a tummy-ache and needs collecting. Apologising, Johnson dashes out, urging me to finish my tea and try a piece of shortbread. Cut into heart shapes, even her biscuits are charmingly photogenic. Loading A week later, we chat on the phone. Johnson is driving to Melbourne Airport after seeing clients in the Otways who want an American ranch-style interior. I'm curious to know what her next chapter holds. She's already living the dream: where does she go from here? 'I've got a small, personal business and that's the way I like it,' she insists. 'I'm not trying to set up an office in London or New York. I like that we can still deliver amazing outcomes for clients that are super personal. Also, I want to raise my own kids.' She mentions how her signet ring, a gift from Patrick, is engraved with a turtle. 'I think it was to remind me to slow down.' Suddenly, I'm reminded of a recurring detail from her house. Beside the Bill Henson in the hallway, on the antique Spanish dining table, by the custom-made sofa, there were vases of mixed roses everywhere. Are they a visual cue, like that ring – a literal reminder to stop and smell the roses? 'Well, they are my favourites,' Johnson laughs. 'But maybe subconsciously, yeah.'
