Don’t quit your daydream
Juliet Sulejmani has ventured far from her structured beginning at fashion school, diving deep into the unknown waters of freelancing, blogging and social media, ready to make her own rules (and mistakes).
Words by Hilary Van Leeuwen
Illustrations by Juliet Sulejmani
From a quick scroll through @thejulietreport, Juliet Sulejmani’s life looks pretty luxe. Mornings are spent sipping lattes in Melbourne’s trendiest cafes and hours spent gathering inspiration at the city’s top galleries – it’s a dream that many of us thought did not exist outside the glossy pages of Vogue. Juliet’s beautiful Instagram and clean, crisp illustrations depict a life that seems far from the reality of someone who worked in a finance and accounting role at the Commonwealth Bank for ten years. But that’s where her story began. While Juliet describes herself as an illustrator, her passion was always fashion. After a chance encounter with 200 new Instagram followers in one day, she shifted her focus. With the rose-coloured filters of Instagram to guide you, take a peek into a day in the life of a freelancer with @thejulietreport and Girl.
Wake up and drink all the coffee
When Juliet first took her hobby to Instagram, it was never intended to be a way to display her work, but more a means to log her drawings, count them and keep track of what she saw as mere pieces of paper. “I remember texting pictures of my drawings to my friends saying, ‘should I post this? Is this bad? Are you sure?’” Pretty soon the likes of Australian fashion brand had reposted her work and Juliet landed her first paid illustrating job on Instagram creating pictorial content for Sarah Wilson’s internationally renowned I Quit Sugar blog.
Get to yoga
While she works for herself now, Juliet admits to needing a push from others along the way. “I had one main teacher at fashion school and without her I wouldn’t have been as open to doing my own thing. She urged me to email people, ask for coffee dates, advice, hand out business cards – I worked out that with getting my name out there and showing how keen I really was, the worst people could say was no.”
Cafe meetings
“It takes time to be in a position to define your role; exposure shaped a lot of my early work but now I am in a position where I can drive it.” Falling in and out of love with what she does has allowed Juliet to understand that she, like anyone, needs structure in her life to keep sight of what her interests truly are. “I don’t regret falling into this, but I briefly forgot what I wanted to do. I’ve done amazing things, worked with great people, but I definitely fell into illustrating.”
Get to studio and work
“I just want to learn more and get better at what I do. My dream is to create a platform that people can use to shape a day or explore places they’ve never thought of visiting. It would reflect my interests, not stuff that I am just being paid to do … things I discover that I think are really awesome: I would like to find ways to be paid for that. At the moment, Girl is an offshoot of this dream.”
Relax with wine and book
“All creative work grows out of love or passion and getting paid for this is hard – I’m keen to release the pressure of trying to ‘make it,’” Juliet says. These days, she splits herself between her freelance drawing work and a part-time job with Melbourne-based company Coffee Supreme. “Three days a week of work gives me structure so I don’t have to say ‘yes’ to everything and it actually inspires my work a lot.”