HOT: Coco Republic Lifestyle Lecture Series, 500 Church St, Richmond

I have a bulging email folder called ‘Newsletters’ which contains all the contents of the million mailing lists to which I subscribe. It’s an unmanageable beast (just like my Google Reader, currently at 1000+ unread items) but hey, I like to keep in the know.

Out of this mass of emails, a recent newsletter from The Agenda (Melbourne version, they do a Sydney version too) caught my eye  – a design lecture series at Coco Republic. Great…until I kept on scrolling and read that Lucy Feagins aka Melbourne blogger extraordinaire of The Design Files, was presenting. ARGH! I quickly reserved a place for myself and another long-time admirer of Lucy, Miss Kish. Who also actually works in design, unlike myself, a pure blogger groupie.

Droolworthy furniture store Coco Republic is hosting this 3 part series to bring together influential speakers from design, property and arts industries. On a cold Wednesday evening and comforted considerably by the gorgeous surroundings (I have a real thing for clocks and lamps), the flutes of Cloudy Bay Pelorus sparkling wine and rounds of crustless chicken sandwiches, about 150 people gathered to hear Gerald Delany from real estate agents Kay & Burton and of course Lucy speak in the second of the lectures.

I’m sort of in the market to buy my first home and Gerald basically gave me the fright of my life. Prices for inner city Melbourne apartments are high, and will remain high, although the market is currently ‘calming’. No, what I want to hear is that there will be a 50%  ‘correction’ in the market! No chance. Oh, and apparently more property is sold at public auction in Melbourne than any other city in the world. Grumble, I do not enjoy auctions.

Lucy then presented on her journey as a blogger, from her start in 2008, the turning point when she went from 500 to 7000 visitors in one day thanks to a mention in uber-blog Design*Sponge, and where she’s going now with her 10,000 daily readers, five days a week. As a result of the blog she’s been offered writing and styling work with magazines such as Inside Out and has just been asked to contribute a design column in The Age’s Melbourne Magazine, and she earns some money from advertising. Along the way she’s met many amazing well-known and unknown creative talents and she now receives somewhere between 20-100 submissions a week for mention in her blog. For someone with that much clout she’s very down to earth, friendly and relaxed and her blog ‘voice’ really is how she is in person! I like Lucy’s blog a lot and now that I’ve met her in real life I’m even more impressed.

The last of the series will be on Thursday 1 July, with William Mora of William Mora Galleries and Amanda Henderson from Gloss Creatives presenting. RSVP to info@cocorepublic.com.au or phone 1300 785 039.