Welcome to The Rural Stylist

Style, country life and a curiosity for what’s around the next corner

I suppose the obvious place to begin my first blog is with an introduction.

I’m Sal, a country girl from the Western Downs in Queensland, business owner, trained stylist and someone who has always been rather curious about what’s around the next corner.

The Rural Stylist isn’t really a new version of me.

If anything, it’s somewhere to finally bring together all the parts of life I’ve always enjoyed.

I’ve always dressed for the occasion, sometimes possibly a little too enthusiastically for the occasion. 

I’ve always stopped at the little store that caught my eye, taken the road I haven’t been down, talked to the person behind the counter and wanted to know the story behind a business.

I’ve always appreciated a beautiful restaurant, good food, lovely accommodation and a bottle of bubbles.

And I’ve always loved country life.

Not because I think everything rural is automatically wonderful. It isn’t.

But because I know just how much talent, enterprise, character and beauty exists outside Australia’s cities.

So perhaps The Rural Stylist has been here all along. It just didn’t have a name.

A collection of unlikely pairings

I’m not particularly easy to put into a category.

I like to dress in a way that makes me feel feminine, but my working life has taken me everywhere from country businesses to offshore oil rigs.

I’m a homebody who is rarely home.

I’m country raised and always a country girl, but I’m rather partial to a little luxury.

I love cooking a meal at home, but I also believe a long lunch is an entirely reasonable way to lose an afternoon.

I can throw myself wholeheartedly into a fitness routine and then undo my good work with an equally enthusiastic appreciation for wine. 😂

I’m forever trying to improve my vocabulary, but can still throw the F word around with the fluency of a country girl who spent plenty of school holidays stick picking.

I love getting dressed up, but I’m equally happy in boots getting a job done.

I love beautiful things, but I value even more the people, places and experiences that help me grow.

And somewhere amongst all of those unlikely pairings, The Rural Stylist makes perfect sense.

Style, but attached to a life

I’ve always loved style.

Eventually, I loved it enough to head to Sydney and train in at the Australian Institute of Style.

But I’m not particularly interested in fashion simply for the sake of fashion.

I’m interested in good quality clothing and what women actually want to wear while they’re out living their lives.

What goes into my bag for a country weekend?

How do I dress for a rural event when I want to feel polished without feeling overdressed?

What did I find in that little country boutique I wandered into?

And yes, I firmly believe in wearing the good clothes.

I’ve never really understood saving everything beautiful for some mythical future occasion. If I love it and have somewhere vaguely appropriate to wear it, chances are I’m wearing it.

Sometimes I might even be overdressed.

I’m sure people notice, but I’m not particularly worried about it. That’s me and these days, I’m becoming increasingly me on purpose.

I can live with that.

Besides, everyday life gives us plenty to celebrate if we’re open to recognising it.

I’ve always been curious

The same goes for places.

I’m the person who sees a little shop and wants to stop.

I’ll turn off the highway because something caught my attention.

I want to know who owns the business and the journey, where something was made, who restored the old building and where the locals actually go for lunch.

I’ll stop for flowers, wander through the boutique, taste the wine, ask questions and probably leave with something I hadn’t intended to buy.

That isn’t something I’ve started doing because I created The Rural Stylist.

Time permitting, that’s how I’ve always travelled.

The difference now is that I have somewhere to share those discoveries.

Because some of the most interesting things I’ve found over the years haven’t necessarily been the places with the biggest marketing budgets or enormous social media followings.

Sometimes they’re behind an old shopfront in a little country town.

Sometimes they’re at the end of a dirt road.

Sometimes you hear about them from someone at the pub.

And sometimes a local simply says, “You need to go and see this place.”

Those are usually the recommendations I’m most interested in.

Why The Rural Stylist, and why now?

If this is how I’ve always lived, then I suppose the question is: why create The Rural Stylist now?

Partly because all these pieces of my life finally seem to belong together.

Style. Rural Australia. Travel. Home. Food and wine. Beautiful stays. Interesting businesses. People and their stories.

But there’s something else too.

Over the past little while, life has given me a fairly significant reminder that time isn’t something any of us are promised an unlimited supply of.

I’m okay, but the experience shifted something in me.

It didn’t suddenly turn me into someone who buys flowers, dresses for dinner, goes exploring or takes spontaneous drives.

I was already her.

What changed was how willing I became to make room for her.

I’m less interested in waiting until the work is finished.

Less interested in whether somebody else wants to come.

Less interested in whether I should go.

Less interested in what somebody might think if I’m overdressed, travelling alone, changing direction or doing something that doesn’t make complete sense to them.

I still work hard. Probably too hard at times.

I’m just becoming much more intentional about enjoying what I work so bloody hard for.

And occasionally, my decision-making process is considerably less sophisticated:

“Fuck it. Let’s find out.” 

Curiosity has taken me to some fairly interesting places so far.

I suspect it’s not finished with me yet.

More than one place to call home

That curiosity has recently taken me somewhere rather interesting.

After returning to the Western Downs for the past two years, I’m making room for another place to call home.

The Granite Belt.

There are wineries and orchards, farm gates and beautiful food, national parks and walking tracks, old buildings and interesting little businesses.

There are people doing clever things.

There are stories I haven’t heard yet.

And, perhaps most importantly, there are a great many country roads I haven’t driven down.

That should keep me occupied for a while.

The Western Downs will always be home.

My businesses are here. My parents are here. And a very large piece of my heart will always belong here.

I’m not necessarily leaving one life behind.

I’m simply making a little more room for another one.

And I’m looking forward to sharing what I discover along the way.

So, what exactly is The Rural Stylist?

That’s a good question.

It’s not quite a fashion blog.

It’s not quite a travel blog.

It’s not simply about country life.

And I certainly don’t intend to present myself as a wine expert. My current wine qualifications remain largely based on label design, taste and effect, generally in that order. 

The Rural Stylist is simply life through my lens.

What I wear.

Where I go.

The places I stay.

What I eat and drink.

The businesses I discover.

The people I meet.

The things I learn.

And the parts of rural Australia I think are worth knowing about.

There’ll be beautiful accommodation and ordinary days at home.

Fine dining and something hearty coming out of the Thermomix.

Wineries and work.

Dresses and boots.

Country towns, city visits and wherever else curiosity happens to take me.

Some of it will be polished.

Some of it almost certainly won’t be.

And there’ll usually be a dog or three and, quite possibly, a cat in the car.

That’s how I roll.

Perhaps you’ll discover something too

I don’t want The Rural Stylist to tell women how they should live.

And I certainly don’t expect your version of a good life to look like mine.

I hope it might simply give you an idea or confidence to lean into life a little more.

Something you’d like to wear.

A different way to style something you already own.

A town you’d never thought about visiting.

A beautiful place to stay.

A little rural business you hadn’t heard of.

A restaurant worth booking.

A bottle worth trying.

A person or story that inspires you.

Or perhaps simply enough curiosity to wonder what might be around your own next corner.

Because I think there’s something rather wonderful about continuing to discover things about the world, about other people and occasionally about ourselves.

I’m certainly still doing all three.

And perhaps that’s what this little corner of the internet is really about.

Dress well. Eat well. Feel well.
Go somewhere worth going.
Discover more of rural Australia.
Make a little more of everyday life.

Not because the life you have isn’t enough.

But because there might still be an awful lot of it left to discover.

So, welcome to The Rural Stylist.

I’m glad you’re here.

I hope something you find on these pages inspires something in you, even if it’s simply the curiosity to see what’s around the next corner.

Let’s see what we find. 🤎

Sal x