No plan, no problem: How Sibella Court designed her own career path

Download The Business Of podcast today on your favourite podcast platform.

From New York fashion shoots to heritage hotels in Australia, designer Sibella Court proves instinct can be your sharpest business tool

About the episode

You don’t become a globally renowned designer by accident. But if you ask Sibella Court, one of Australia’s most sought-after stylists, she never had a master plan to make it big.

From global brand campaigns to bestselling books and hit TV shows, Sibella built a design empire balancing great instincts, good relationships, and sound commercial judgement.  

Her approach to business is somewhat unconventional, but it is a masterclass in backing yourself, building a brand organically, and knowing when it’s time to move on.

This episode is hosted by Dr Juliet Bourke, with insights from Professor Barney Tan.

Want to know more? 

For the latest news and research from UNSW Business School and AGSM @ UNSW Business School, subscribe to our industry stories at BusinessThink and follow us on LinkedIn: UNSW Business School and AGSM @ UNSW Business School.

Transcript

Dr Juliet Bourke: When making a decision for your company, what do you trust the most? The numbers or your gut? As technology improves across businesses and industries, we hear more and more that data-driven decision making is king (or queen). But what about the other often softer skills that can be crucial to business success? For Sibella Court, one of Australia’s most sought after interior designers and stylists, it’s those skills that have been the compass for her career.

Sibella Court: I had been styling for 16 years, and just started dreaming up this idea that I could open a shop. I didn’t have a business plan or really care about the projections, or all of those sorts of things.

Dr Juliet Bourke: Sibella’s career started in magazines – working for Vogue and Marie Claire here in Australia, before moving to New York where she collaborated with global brands like Bergdorf Goodman, Donna Karan and Saks Fifth Avenue. She returned to Sydney in 2008 and opened her dream store, The Society Inc, selling homewares and goods alongside her styling and design services. It may seem foreign to those of us who live and die by spreadsheets and statistics, but Sibella’s intuitive approach to marketing and business growth has seen her go from strength to strength. She’s collaborated with some of Australia’s finest hotels and restaurants, published best selling design books, and even hosted ABC’s Restoration Australia. So what is the secret to Sibella’s organic success?  

Sibella Court: I do think the socialising is a really big part of it. I don’t socialise as much now, but anytime I do something comes out of it. It’s a casual passing, a casual conversation that sticks with someone or sticks with you, and a seed is planted and something always comes of it.

Dr Juliet Bourke: I’m Dr Juliet Bourke, an Adjunct Professor in the School of Management and Governance at the UNSW Business School. You’re listening to The Business Of. So Sibella, how did your early experience, especially working with big brands in New York, shape your understanding of the business of design?

Sibella Court: I started in magazines. I started at Vogue, and then on Marie Claire Lifestyle as an editor at a very young age. We ran on skeleton staff, which was beautiful and you did learn to be a jack of all trades. I mean, with that, you become very good at doing everything. And I think going to New York that is an incredible education, because you can run a small business because you’ve learned how to do that on the smell of an oily rag. And then going to New York, you have these much bigger teams, and I think that’s what you have to navigate – more of how to manage the communication, manage the scheduling, the logistics. You know, if I was doing a Donna Karan advertising photo shoot, we’d be shooting at Pier 59 in this massive 2000 square foot studio. I would have six prop tables. I would have propped for days all over the city, gone to every single shop. There was not online then – you were going everywhere, I was finding every single background. I never left any stone unturned. And then on the day would be picking and choosing. I was shooting with amazing photographers. You would have the creative director, the marketing director, the photo editor there. A photographer would have four assistants, and I would have three assistants. You know, working with these very large groups of people and you’d have to learn how to navigate that without getting too worried about the dilution of the creative process. Because coming from Australia on these skeleton teams, you had a very focused creative output that didn’t have a lot of other people’s input.

Dr Juliet Bourke: And that industry, you know, it has this sense of exclusiveness about it and allure. How do you build a profile for yourself in that industry? What did you do?

Sibella Court: I mean, you know, I was so lucky to be a part of the early 90s in the magazine world in Australia. We had incredible magazines, and they were being watched by everyone overseas. And I think a big change for me was when Karen McCartney came over, and she was the editor of Marie Claire lifestyle, and I worked on that from the get go. And I teamed up with Donna Hay, who’s one of my dear friends, and we’d been shooting in the same studio, and we teamed up as interiors and food, which hadn’t really been done before. I mean, there were some of the English magazines that were doing it under Ilse Crawford, but we had this different way of looking at it, and we would hire fashion photographers to shoot our food and interiors. So it had a completely different look and we were doing something completely different. So when I did end up in New York, I would go to photographers meetings or any sort of art direction meeting and they would have all my spreadsheets out, and they were looking at Australia to what we were doing, and they were admiring it and wanting it.

Dr Juliet Bourke: I often think about that with Australia. You know, we’re a small market but we’re a mature market. We’re doing things on the smell of an oily rag and we can come up with these amazing innovations, and we’re quite adept at early adoption as well. You said, though, when you went to the US you learned a whole lot of things about scale and dealing with people. So they liked your creativity, but it was the business side?

Sibella Court: Absolutely, the business side. I mean, within that, of course you met other great creatives that you could spark with, that helped you grow into a better design or a better stylist and have a different kind of eye. And, you know, you expand as a person – you travel more, you see more things. But definitely that fine tuning of business is so very different to here.

Dr Juliet Bourke: So you ended up leaving New York in 2008, returning to Sydney to launch your own design studio, The Society Inc. I’ve seen it described as a “haberdashery meets hardware store”. What was the catalyst for opening that space?

Sibella Court: I had been styling for 16 years when I was in New York, and I had an amazing friend – James Merrill, English photographer, who I’ve done many a shoot with – and we just started dreaming up this idea that I could open a shop. There was incredible new ways of looking at retail that was happening around that time in New York. So you had Donna Karan open her flagship store up on Fifth Avenue that had a turntable in it and a juice bar, and it had books that you could read alongside her fashion. People were just doing this new way of retail that I was like, “I’m kind of done with styling.” I mean, I could shoot up to five shoots a week and each one had a truck that followed them. It was like this traveling circus that you packed and unpacked on a daily basis. It was exhausting, like absolutely exhausting. Every stylist knows about “stylists back”. Everyone has a terrible back from doing it because you’re impatient, there’s no time, you’re there moving three meter sofas on your own. You’re doing all sorts of things. So I was just thinking, what’s next? And you get to meet the most incredible people, because you’re borrowing pieces from artists, new makers. The products are incredible, the wallpapers, the paint, and you know everyone, everywhere, all over the world. But I was like, “I want to showcase all these people. I want to do a shop.” So I started looking for that shop in New York and I had one that I was working on a lease in Soho, and then came home for a quick trip to see my family. When I got home, I was like, “I’m not doing it. I’m moving home.” Within like 48 hours, it was the strangest thing.  

Dr Juliet Bourke: What was that about?  

Sibella Court: I don’t know. I think it was... it was that time in August when you get those couple of weeks where you can smell summer. Glorious weather. I went down south – I was swimming, I was running on the beach, and I was with all these friends, and I was just like, “What am I doing? I’m coming back here. This is amazing.” And having this really beautiful idea of owning a shop and what that could look like, it didn’t matter where it really opened. So I actually decided, and then went back to New York and packed everything up and moved back in the December.

Dr Juliet Bourke: Wow.  

Sibella Court: Yeah.  

Dr Juliet Bourke: I sometimes think we forget that. We think businesses are just all about an intellectual decision, a cash flow projection, a new business model. But actually, there’s someone like you that’s the beating heart of that business, and if your beating heart is now in Australia that’s where the business is.

Sibella Court: That’s where the business is. And I just, yeah, changed it.  

Dr Juliet Bourke: So how did that work? I know you said your contacts were global, but I imagine that a lot of them were US based.  

Sibella Court: They were, and I had been collecting stock as well. So I had three storage spaces in New York, and they were full to the rafters of old props and stock and all sorts of things. So I got these amazing packers in and they shipped it home, and I had stock for my shop for three years, because also the GFC hit and we went into a recession.  

Dr Juliet Bourke: Right. So you don’t have any cash problems then?  

Sibella Court: No, I didn’t have to buy a single thing.  

Dr Juliet Bourke: And how did you weather that storm? What happened with that retail business?  

Sibella Court: Well, as you’ve probably picked up, I didn’t have a business plan, or really care about the projections or all of those sorts of things. I ended up buying a building in Paddington that was an old shop downstairs and I lived upstairs, and so it suit my purposes beautifully and I was able to open that quite quickly. And at the same time, I had also sort of signed up with Justin Hemis at Maryvale to work on all of his restaurants and businesses. So we were designing and opening all sorts of things as well together.  

Sibella Court: How did you develop those relationships coming back after being away for such a long time?  

Sibella Court: Well, I’d met him back in the August and he was opening Ivy, and then we kept chatting because, you know, I knew a lot about restaurants. I’d been eating out, I think, three times a week for about last 20 years. And I had worked all over the world, shooting hotels and restaurants. So he just kept chatting to me about working with him on his projects, because I came from, I suppose, a little bit of a different background to a traditional interior designer with that styling background. I mean, I built enormous sets in New York. We did create apartments and all sorts of other stuff, but it was, you know, done with hot glue and a cable tie. Not nails, not longevity – we had to pull it down in the afternoon. But coming from that different point of view, I think was really interesting at a time when stylists didn’t work on restaurants. So we created a new DNA in the hospitality field.  

Dr Juliet Bourke: And how did he find out about you?  

Sibella Court: I met him at a restaurant.  

Dr Juliet Bourke: And...  

Sibella Court: I don’t know. I can’t remember how it happened. I mean, I had a lot of energy and a lot of ideas. But none of the steps that I’ve taken in my career, particularly... you know, they’re not really thought about. Maybe it’s just good timing is a big part of it as well.  

Dr Juliet Bourke: Yeah, they sound organic.  

Sibella Court: It’s all very organic.

Dr Juliet Bourke: But then you have to be in the space. You have to be putting that energy out there. You have to be having 100 meetings, 100 dinners. You know, you’re saying you’re going out three times a week. And it just so happens that one of those nights out in Australia he happens to be in the same restaurant.  

Sibella Court: Yeah.

Dr Juliet Bourke: Are there other suggestions you would have to people how they build relationships so they can get their brand out there?

Sibella Court: I do think the socialising is a really big part of it. I don’t socialise as much now – I live down south, you know, I work in the city, but I don’t go out at night as much. But anytime I do, something comes out of it. It’s a casual passing, a casual conversation that sticks with someone or sticks with you. And, you know, a seed is planted and something always comes of it. Always comes of it.

Dr Juliet Bourke: How do you do that? So that it’s not naff. You know that you don’t want to be a human business card.

Sibella Court: I suppose with me, I’m not that targeted. So we’re always having casual conversations. Ask whoever you’re talking to a lot of questions, you know, and that’s always interesting. But it could be going to an art opening, it could be going to Sydney contemporary opening night. Open to be talking to strangers as well, or gallerists, or furniture makers, or whatever that may be. I mean, there’s so many events that you can go to, or lists that you can get on, particularly for the galleries and things like that. And there’s always interesting people to talk to. Endlessly interesting people to talk to.  

Dr Juliet Bourke: I think I hear two things from you. One is that it’s a bit about luck, but you make your own luck. And the other is your focus on the other person. So you’re not thinking of yourself as going there, selling work. You’re thinking of just meeting an interesting person.

Sibella Court: Absolutely, absolutely. I do surround myself with makers as well, and they’re all so integral to my design process. And I think when you build that community too your name is interwoven with a certain type of craftsmanship. So whether that’s a sign writer or a blacksmith or a weaver or an artist or an upholster or... I mean, they’re my kind of industry things, you can pick your industry things, that are really special.

Dr Juliet Bourke: But really they’re your distribution network, your marketing channel. More your marketing channel.

Sibella Court: Yeah, and we celebrate one another.  

Dr Juliet Bourke: Oh, right, you’re their marketing channel too. “Hey, I can bring this weaver in.”

Barney Tan: What Sibella just described is what academics call “planned serendipity”.

Dr Juliet Bourke: That’s Professor Barney Tan. He says successful businesses often lay the foundation for what’s seen as good luck with strategic planning.

Barney Tan: In reality, a lot of what looks like luck is actually the result of systems and groundwork that create conditions for good fortune to happen. It’s about creating the conditions for intuition to thrive, and Sibella’s journey illustrates this perfectly. Ability to pivot, take creative leaps and say yes to the right opportunities didn’t come out of nowhere. It was underpinned by a strong foundation – her craft, her network, her identity as a designer. That foundation gives her intuition something to land on. This idea of planned serendipity also came through clearly in my own research on a Vietnamese fintech startup called MomoPay. The founders there were often described as unusually lucky. They always seemed to be able to sense market shifts and regulatory changes before anyone else did. But when we studied them closely, what we found was a deep strategic infrastructure that supported their integration. They invested in sensing capabilities, they stayed close to both customers and policy makers, and they fostered a culture of real-time information sharing. So when something unexpected happened, they were already primed to act. It’s the same with creative businesses. What looks like a stroke of genius is usually supported by deep experience, clear values and the willingness to act when a hunch arises. Intuition by itself isn’t enough, it only becomes valuable when you’ve done the prep work that lets you trust it and act on it. That’s why I think Sibella’s story resonates so much. Her ability to seize opportunities, to pivot with confidence... it’s not luck in the chaotic, random sense. It’s planned serendipity. It’s what happens when intuition meets preparation.

Dr Juliet Bourke: The other thing I want to ask you about The Society Inc, was that you had a whole lot of different products and offerings under one umbrella, right? So how did you create consistency between them.

Sibella Court: Well, there were two sides to the business. So it cradles, sort of, the Sibella Court brand as well as The Society Inc brand. The Society Inc brand was the hardware and homewares, you know, anything that could be sold on to a customer that would sit on our retail site. And also we did a lot of wholesale. And then on the other side of that, under the Sibella Court brand would be my manufacturing collaborations. So they’re with Australian manufacturers and they’re products that they sell. I design them and they sell them through their streams. So they’re quite a different way of designing because they take all the manufacturing responsibility and sales responsibility.

Dr Juliet Bourke: You decided to close down The Society Inc in 2023 after running that business for 15 years. How did you know it was the right time?

Sibella Court: I don’t know if you ever know exactly when the right time is, but we did have a looming deadline that ended up being time appropriate. The building I’d been in for 10 years was getting demolished, so I had to go through that enormous collection. I don’t know if you visited there, but I have been collecting since I was about 18 years old and it housed my enormous object library and collection of things, and I had to get them out of there. So I did four Lawson’s auctions and sold 1000s and 1000s of my objects that I had collected for such a long time. So there was this lead up to that, and then I think it just almost organically happened, even though I’d been in the back of my mind that this was going to happen soon. The redevelopment of that amazing old warehouse and the whole precinct being demolished was a big part of it.

Dr Juliet Bourke: That would make sense to me, though, because you’re such a physical person. You’ve got your hands on the materials, and letting go of these treasures might have enabled you to let go of the business.

Sibella Court: Oh, it absolutely did. And it was very freeing once it was done. Yeah, there’s always silver linings.

Dr Juliet Bourke: And from what I understand, there were also some personal reasons that factored into the decision to close. Can I ask about that?

Sibella Court: My partner was my husband as well. And, you know, our relationship fell apart as did the business, and it was unraveling over quite a few years and I was holding up the whole business and running the whole thing. I mean, it was such a beast, and, you know, that partnership didn’t work anymore.  

Dr Juliet Bourke: What are your learnings now about going into business with other people? Would you do it again?

Sibella Court: I probably would do it again. Yes. I just might have a few more rules around it. Rules around how you can both get out of it, really, and one person can take it over and the other exits.  

Dr Juliet Bourke: I think that’s a really interesting thing. Almost what you’re talking about is a prenup that you go into, because it is a relationship with someone. And you don’t want to be talking about when this relationship ends, but you kind of need to.

Sibella Court: You need to. You know what that prenup? That’s fantastic. I think that’s fantastic advice. Go into it like it’s a prenup.

Dr Juliet Bourke: How did that work from a revenue stream perspective? Letting go of one business, how are you going to make money?

Sibella Court: So as I mentioned before, that umbrella of The Society Inc, had quite a few revenue streams already. One half was the hardware business, and it took up about 65 per cent of my time but I never drew a wage from it. So all the other things that I did under Sibella Court, which was the ambassador roles, all my interior design projects and all the manufacturing collaborations. So they were my biggest earners regardless. And then the books and any television are all under that side.

Dr Juliet Bourke: Speaking of books and television, you hosted ABC’s Restoration Australia. I look at shows like that, where you’re basically empowering Australian audiences to have a go themselves, and I wonder what does that do to a business model where you teach someone else how to be a good stylist? Because they’re going to eat your breakfast.

Sibella Court: Restoration Australia, I didn’t have any contribution into to how these people finished their homes. I was literally there to document their journey, and they were beautiful journeys. So however they wanted to live in their house, they can live in their house. But I do believe... I think my books were a bigger guide to how you could decorate your home, more so than the television show. But I am such a big believer in passing confidence or trying to hold someone’s hand to give them a bit more confidence, to surround themselves with the things that they love. And there’s enough work for everyone.  

Dr Juliet Bourke: That’s where I was kind of going to, you know, does it actually create work for you? Do books create a market, or do they diminish your own market?  

Sibella Court: I mean, I only did books because I love books. I have three libraries. I prefer books over digital any day. And I did the books because I loved the books, I didn’t do it to serve any other purpose. If you go into doing books thinking you’re going to make a fortune you’ll be bitterly disappointed, but they become this incredible accidental marketing tool. I didn’t know that at the time, but they do, and they have longevity.

Dr Juliet Bourke: I’m just thinking about your current venture, this Sibella Court Studio. It’s streamlined – you’ve got the styling, you’ve got the design services, as well as these makers creating the products for you. And the new technology out there, AI apps – you see them in different ways, you know, you’ve got a carpet and you put it in a 3D so you can imagine it. How do you see your business intersecting with that new technology?

Sibella Court: We don’t use AI in that way, but I have been playing around with it with a friend of mine, Joshua Yeldham, putting photographs into AI. So I largely design hotels, a lot of them remote, and we work with really big teams. So I’ll often be a lead creative and then there’ll be an interior design team, another architectural team, a lead architect, and then there’ll be up to 100 consultants underneath that, and we work from master plan. So, you know, they’re very large, complicated jobs. So the AI we’re using at the moment is usually to record all of our WIPs, which are huge and long and lengthy with many people, and it writes the minutes for us and then it tells us all what to do. So that has been an incredible saver. When I was playing around with Josh the other day, we actually put into AI “Create an interior design that looks like it’s in Paris in dark lighting, designed by Sibella Court with the Joshua Yeldham owl painting on the wall.” And it came out and it created this incredible render. The space they created... I would never design a space like that. They got it so wrong, but it was incredible. Look never say never, but in my career lifetime I doubt that a space that I could create would be created by AI and a client’s going to take that. I think the curation role will never go away. I mean, the process of time and the beauty it creates, it cannot be created in a digital world. I mean, if I’m doing, you know, a hotel or whatever interior space I’m designing, you know, 50 per cent of it is artisan made, whether that’s custom or bespoke, 40 per cent probably vintage, and then this tiny little 10 per cent is off the shelf. So how are they going to make something that is made by my blacksmith or done gold leaf by my sign writer, and then the other parts are all embedded with the past histories in vintage furniture that has all the nicks and scratches that tells its stories, that gives the space something you can’t see but you can feel.

Dr Juliet Bourke: Is there a hint for the future here of design? And that is the more that you show the reality of something, the more you show its history, the more interesting is. And it almost creates this larger division between AI and futuristic technology and the humans that we are.

Sibella Court: I think so. And it might take over all the design for kit homes that are all shiny and new.  

Dr Juliet Bourke: But not for...  

Sibella Court: But not for...

Dr Juliet Bourke: Nostalgic Sibella?

Sibella Court: No.

Dr Juliet Bourke: So what does the future look like for AI integration in creative industries? Here’s Professor Barney Tan again...

Barney Tan: When it comes to AI use in creative industries, research show that there are inherent tensions. On one hand, from the perspective of the firms that need design – whether that’s marketing teams, e-commerce platforms or publishers – AI tools offer incredible efficiency. You can generate 10 versions of a visual in minutes, iterate rapidly and bring production costs down. So there’s a strong temptation to see AI as a way to replace designers, or at least reduce reliance on them. But then there’s the other side, the stakeholder response, and this is where things get tricky. When customers find out a design or even a broader product experience was generated by AI their perception of authenticity can drop. People value the human touch, especially in areas like branding, interior design, or any domain where emotion, identity and personal tastes are at play. If something feels too perfect or too artificial, it risks coming off as sterile or mass-produced. My recent research on the use of AI in the Korean creative industry really brought this tension to light. Now we looked at how creative firms in Korea were adopting generative AI, and found that the success of those firms depended less on the tech itself and more on the design of the interactions around it. Firms that succeeded weren’t just using AI behind the scenes, they were thinking about how the technology would be received by users, clients and even their own designers. Some were upfront about using AI to generate drafts or support ideation, while others chose to mask its presence and use entirely to preserve a more handcrafted feel. And it also depends on what exactly is being created. For instance, many customers might feel it’s perfectly acceptable to use AI to design something like a company logo. It’s clean, it’s functional, and the emotional connection is often limited. But imagine if this podcast was entirely generated by AI. No human host, no real voices, just synthetic speech and machine written scripts. That would feel uncanny, even off putting, because the value here comes from personality. It comes from empathy and real life experiences that we are sharing. So the same tool used in similar ways, but you get very different reactions based on the context. What was fascinating in our study was also how firms navigated this emotional terrain. They weren’t just asking can this be automated but also, should it be? So that ethical and esthetic consideration shaped everything from the tools they used to the way they presented their final work to clients. So the question becomes, where do we draw the line? What parts of the creative process are okay to automate and which ones are essential for preserving a sense of meaning and trust? Some companies bring their customers into the process being transparent about using AI and inviting feedback. Others keep it in the background and use it to enhance workflows without changing the front facing experience. That’s the challenge for businesses today. AI can absolutely streamline production, but the creative economy is still built on trust, taste and storytelling. If we lose that, no amount of automation will bring the audience back. The opportunity lies not in replacing creativity, but in designing around it, thoughtfully and with intent.

Dr Juliet Bourke: Thanks to Sibella Court for joining us on this episode. Learn more about blending creativity and commerciality in our conversation with Alexandra Smart.

Alexandra Smart: I think large organisations now not only require but desire leaders who can think creatively, think quickly, think in a dynamic way, with an element of risk to get things done. They require leaders like that, but often it’s just not the culture or not the way things are done.  

Dr Juliet Bourke: You’ll find that linked in our episode description. The Business Of is brought to you by UNSW Business School produced with Deadset Studios.

To stay up-to-date with our latest podcasts as well as the latest insights and thought leadership from the Business School, subscribe to BusinessThink.