Since 1994, Empire has handcrafted and curated furnishings, home essentials and covetable objects to live with forever.
Founded and owned by Perry and Jill Coleman and their family, and with five stores located throughout Western Australia, Empire remains the home of ready-made and custom-order contemporary furniture and beautifully crafted homewares.
Rooted in natural elements with an emphasis on harmony, light, and organic sophistication, each piece is designed and made with care to ensure it adapts to any home and lifestyle. Equally importantly are our high-quality natural materials. Including timber, bamboo, rattan and marble, each ensure beautiful longevity making each piece truly sustainable which in turn, reduces Empire’s environmental footprint.
Drawing on our Western Australian heritage and relaxed beachside lifestyle, Empire’s strong curatorial focus and evolving edit of beautiful objects and furnishings make us a leading decorating mecca of considered design and contemporary living.
We proudly support upcoming and established Australian homeware brands, including Society Inc, Waverly Mills, Maison Balzac and Bemboka, that perfectly complement our range of furniture.
With our dedication to providing a unique shopping experience, expert interior advice, design consultation and personal services, Empire remains the go-to destination for unique and distinctive design classics, artful accoutrements and future collectables.
Stylistically helmed by creative director Elissa Coleman, Empire is equipped with everything your home needs.
From furniture, lighting and textiles to tableware and glassware, each piece is designed or chosen personally by us for its ability to be layered together, comfortably lived with, and to tell a story, no matter what your style.
Elissa’s long career in interiors, spanning design capitals New York City, Rome and Sydney, informs Empire’s international sensibility and unique style of merchandising, including our much-loved ever-changing shop floors. It is this unique aesthetic that makes Empire not only a place to feel inspired and acquire beautiful objects, but a platform for an ongoing conversation about design and sustainability.
Home must-haves like dining tables, chairs, consoles, buffets and beds are constructed by hand in Indonesia out of high-quality teak, mango wood, rattan and bamboo. Sofas to sink into are beautifully upholstered or clad in premium European leathers, whilst other daily objects like benches, bedside tables, mirrors and cabinets are reimagined from treasures found on Elissa’s travels, be it old Indian shutters, apothecary cabinets, vintage marble sinks or intriguing hardware.
Founder Perry Colemanon on furniture, family and the wonderful world of Empire
My first job
My very first job was in retail when I was in my twenties. I worked for myself - I have never worked for anyone else. It was the first store my wife Jill and I owned. It was called Raindrops and was in Mandurah, about an hour away from Perth. It was the seventies and I was a bit of a hippy at the time, so we sold lots of jewellery, incense and beanbags.
The landlord took one look at me and gave me his smallest retail space, just 300sq feet. 12 months later, Raindrops was so popular, he offered me the main retail space in the centre’s next stage!
Forays into furniture
Jill and I called this new store Peddlers and sold furniture for the very first time. I made a lot of it myself at my father’s farm in Pinjarra and imported rattan cane furniture. One day the guy who supplied it suggested we buy his business from him, which we did. Just like that we properly moved into the world of importing. It was the early 1980s and Jill and I started our own franchise called Tropicane Imports.
We opened eleven stores, imported all kinds of furniture from the Philippines and Malaysia and Hong Kong and enjoyed our businesses and success.
Sea change
Then the recession hit. We closed our shops, sold the house in Perth, and packed up our young daughters Elissa and Renee for Margaret River. We bought a farm, 260 acres of land, between Dunsborough and Yallingup and ran sheep.
Not long after we moved, a new shopping centre opened nearby in Busselton. The landlord was struggling to rent any of the shops and knew we had a retail background. He offered me as many retail spaces as I wanted to help get the centre up and running. Jill and I channelled all of our experience and opened our next store, Fig Tree Cane.
Life-changing Bali
We got an overdraft on the farm to buy Fig Tree Cane, and used some of the money to take the girls away on holiday. It was the first time we went to Bali. This was a long time before it was a popular holiday destination. It was on this trip that I noticed a truck packed with timber furniture. I immediately spotted potential and bought our very first container of furniture.
When it landed in Perth, we sold out in 24 hours. There were customers fighting over it! I got right back on the plane and headed back to Bali. It was on this next trip I met an American guy, Philip, who was manufacturing furniture out of his warehouse in Java. They were some great pieces painted in different colours and with distressed finishes. I took a container of it on the spot. It was the beginning of a long and strong professional relationship between the two of us.
Not long after, Jill and I invited Philip to visit us in Western Australia to see our stores. He was so impressed with Fig Tree Cane he suggested we open one in Perth too. He was keen to invest.
On the way to driving him to the airport we spotted a big warehouse for sale in Hay Street, Subiaco. He told me to stop the car, find a phone and ask how much it was to buy.
The World of Empire
We bought the space, painted it up, Jill did the interiors, Elissa designed the logo at university, and we named it Old Empire for the imported colonial furniture it stocked.
We had the store for 10 years and it was wildly popular.
We love Empire because of the way we feel when we walk into one of our stores.
Each one is different and unique; like mini department stores where you can buy everything you need straight off the floor.
It is our point of difference along with Elissa’s merchandising that we are best known for.
Equally we are proud of our approach to sustainability which we address in different ways. The material we mainly use for our furniture is wood, mainly mango that we source from plantations, as well as teak for our outdoor furniture that comes out of Indonesian government forests. Neither are endangered or rainforest and are readily available. We also use bamboo and rattan for its rapid growth, strength, durability and versatility.
Just as important for our customers as it is for the environment, every object we manufacture or repurpose is handcrafted with integrity, honesty and is made to last. Empire furniture isn’t disposable and isn’t just for today. Every single piece is crafted with care. It’s here for the long haul.
