Creative Unravelling

KATIE RIDDELL HAS MADE A SUCCESSFUL TRANSITION FROM LAWYER TO INTERIOR DESIGNER, LEVERAGING HER PROFESSIONAL SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE TO FOLLOW HER PASSION. 

By Lara Topluoglu as featured in ‘Living Law/Beyond the Law’
— Law Institute Journal

Creativity has been important to Katie Riddell throughout her 20-year career as a lawyer. While working in property law and guiding clients through renovations and remodelling, she decided to put her creative instincts to the test much more literally.

“I was always reading interior design magazines, so I enrolled in a three-year design course at Holmesglen,” Ms Riddell says.

Balancing study with full-time work was a challenge, but the gamble paid off and, in 2017, Ms Riddell started her own interior decorating business. What drives her and helps fuel her passion, she says, is the prospect of helping people love their homes by helping them feel at home.

“I love being able to help people. And I just love the creative process, coming up with concepts and then taking my clients on this journey of seeing the concept and the samples, and taking them to the beautiful showrooms and then seeing how they experience that. And then the final transformation where it all comes together.”

To make a name for herself in the interior design industry, Ms Riddell became her “own PR machine”, showcasing her home (photographed by her father-in-law) on her business website and attending as many trade shows as possible. But it was connecting with a likeminded community that she found the most helpful. The interior design group she had been a member of for the past seven years is a supportive place, where members “have chats and discussions, plan showroom visits and share ideas”.

The investment of time and effort has paid off, with Ms Riddell’s work featured in Apartment Therapy, Australian Country Magazine and Gippsland Magazine, as well as being part of the Melbourne Home Show in August this year.

Reflecting on her business journey, she appreciates the role her experience as a lawyer has played – both the obvious and the more profound. “I was actually thinking of calling my business ‘Unravel’ at one point”, she says, smiling. “I had to unravel a lot of my ways of being as a lawyer. Because for me, the looking for risk and the huge responsibility we have as a lawyer perhaps took away from a lot of the creativity – where you don’t have that response, that same level of responsibility, you don’t have that same level of risk that you’re looking at.

“You are looking at more freedom and maybe breaking some rules, and so for me, it’s been quite an unravel.”

For Ms Riddell, the law was a sensible choice of career during the 1990s economic recession, and one she felt could make a difference. During her career, starting at a large law firm and then as an in-house lawyer in various industries, she had many opportunities to do just that. However, challenges with balancing work commitments with her personal and creative life left her wanting. “It just felt very restrictive to me,” Ms Riddell says. “In terms of work, life, balance, stress – I’ve had different roles where the stress has been really horrible, both in-house and in law firms.” The solution came with the realisation that there is life beyond the law, where legal skills and knowledge can be put to use in a different discipline – one that Ms Riddell was passionate about.

Still, the transition from law to design was filled with apprehension. “There was a lot of fear about going in to do something different, a lot of ‘What are people going to say?’. And there’s that whole ‘sunk cost equation’, where you’ve put so much effort into something, so why would you not reap the benefits of it? I’d spent so much time as a lawyer. So, why wouldn’t I continue as a lawyer?”

With the benefit of hindsight, however, Ms Riddell says she wouldn’t change a thing. While the legal profession could be stressful, it gave her a strong grounding in business, a confidence in public speaking and “lawyer discipline”. All these are now helping propel her design business to new heights.

Ms Riddell wants all those who may be feeling “stuck” in their career to remember that “life is, really, quite short”.

“I’ve been to quite a lot of funerals in the last couple of years and my advice is to just do it, just try something. You’ve got nothing to lose.” ■