The Finders Keepers Recap
Posted by Maryline Sunarho on
This event is one of the highlights of the year so far for Harvest Collection. Finders Keepers is one of the most sought after design market in Australia and I was privileged to be selected to hold a debut stall there.
ABOUT FINDERS KEEPERS
To begin with, let me tell you the fact that it is a hard, competitive market to get into. As a matter of fact, I have been rejected three times before they finally accepted me. There are only 200 spots available at one time to trade and it is a great place to help emerging brands to grow. If you like to support small businesses and Australian designers, this market is the right place to go to.
THE STALLHOLDERS
Australia has amazing arrays of talented artists and designers. If you have had a chance to visit one of the Finders Keepers markets, you would agree with me that the standard of products being displayed there are set pretty high. I admire the other stallholders' creativity and it challenges me to grow my craft too. I really enjoyed connecting with other designers and artists. A lot of them have full time jobs and do this business as a side hustle until it can pay itself.
THE SHOPPERS
The market spanned over 2.5 days, from Friday midday to Sunday afternoon. One day is really not enough to soak in all the gorgeous products. Many shoppers came on the first day to just check out what's on offer at the market. Then the next day they revisited some of the stalls after they carefully made a decision what to best spend their money on.
At first I thought the shoppers would be more of the type who have keen interest in the arts. I expected a really quirky crowd, so I was worried maybe my style wouldn't be edgy enough for this market. But as it turned out, a lot of them looked just like regular shoppers - mums, dads, office professionals, young, old and everything in between. And I was happy to observe that my bag designs attracted a lot of shoppers there. You can see from some of the photos above how my days went!
I will certainly come back to this market in the future.