Shona Grant has always lived by one instinct: everything worth keeping has a story to tell. From eccentric cats and heirloom jewellery to bold fashion, beloved books, quirky treasures and the bright lights of Broadway, her life is a collage of objects that carry memory, mischief and meaning. ShonaTell is where she brings those stories together—celebrating the charm, humour and history tucked inside the things we choose to hold on to.

Cats come into my life and stay

The first cat I ever encountered was my grandmother’s, George, a scruffy black and white tom, with a purrsonality to match. There were no grey areas with George: spitting one minute, purring the next. I’m sure it was George’s arrogance and eccentricity that got me hooked on these fascinating felines, as cats both live and ornamental, in literature, on clothing, in music and art have kept me company ever since.

These découpage cats came from the iconic Melbourne department store, GEORGES in Collins Street. Sadly, the store did not have the reputed nine lives attributed to felines, but my ‘Georges’ cattery’ survives as a reminder of its glamorous origins and fabulous shopping experiences.

Fashion and style: it’s in the genes!

Keeping up appearances has always been a priority for the women in my family. This photo of my maternal great-grandmother shows her elegant style; to me she looked like England’s Queen Mary. I recall looking at garments hanging in her daughter’s—my grandmother’s—wardrobe, thinking they were fabulous and that’s how I would dress when I grew up. When I was about four years old, Nanny, Mum and me were ‘going to town’, and that meant dressing up: hats, gloves, handbags, jewellery—an OCCASION!

So for me, style has always been something unique, innate, in the genes, in the wardrobe: created and not about trends, the latest ‘fashun’ etc. Put simply, clothes are key to a sense of self. A few years ago photographer Ari Seth Cohen created the Advanced Style ‘movement’ where older people are embraced for being visible, bold, fun, ALIVE, rather than disappearing into a world of pastel insignificance. I’m very happy to be part of this fabulous cohort: I don’t do beige!

Books: my library speaks volumes

When I think back on my childhood and family life, I believe Philip Larkin nailed it in This be the Verse: ‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to but they do.’ However, from as far back as I can remember, my parents instilled in me the benefits of reading and for this I am ever grateful—they got something right! I still have some of the first books that were read to me, including Winnie the Pooh! Books that have moved countries with me, books of fiction, biography, history, travel, philosophy, and authors who take my fancy: Oliver Sacks, Christopher Hitchens, Joan Dideon, Colm Tóibín. For me, books offer comfort, inspiration and information; a kind of literary journey.

Art: every picture tells a story

I don’t have a vast, extravagant art collection—it’s more quirky—but like my books, some of it has been with me for years. Everything on my walls/shelves has some significance: works inherited, gifted, chosen with a particular person or in a specific place, even one commissioned. Art bought on a whim or saved up for, or, as with the most recent addition, Melancholia, pictured here, resulting from a specific mission. Long an admirer of Roz Chast’s cartoons in The New Yorker, I was thrilled when her work was available at a gallery in NYC. Inevitably, I found the gallery and thence Melancholia; packed between cardboard in my suitcase, ‘she’ endured the journey to my wall, where I like to think the view quells any melancholy thoughts! Timing was out to meet Roz, but we exchanged messages and she assured me that ‘most melancholics recover after a fashion’!

Theatre: another opening, another show

When I turned five, my mother decided ballet lessons would fix my apparently ‘flat feet’. I didn’t much enjoy ballet and begged to join the tap class—MUCH more fun and the sound was wonderful. The stern answer: ‘NO- that’s for cheap girls!’ An incipient contrarian, that just made me determined to see what a group of tappers was all about and no doubt initiated an ongoing passion for the theatre, musicals in particular. At university, I joined the Drama Club, took part in student reviews, helped with props, sets, costumes etc, but ultimately I preferred to be on the other side of the curtain. While I like to support local theatre groups, having discovered the thrills of Broadway, I’m lured back annually to fan the flames in NYC, now almost a second home and thus the Playbills continue to accumulate….

Here I must mention too, that my mother took up playwriting—midlife crisis?—and today I have some of her ‘works’ still, plus the trophy she won for Best Play in the local Women’s Club Competition.

Jewellery: baubles, bangles, beads

While ‘Jack’s hair’ stays coiled in a glass dish—another heirloom from my grandmother’s dressing table set—my own curl stays under cover in one side of a locket (now a ring) that belonged first to my paternal grandmother, then her daughter, Dad’s sister, who passed it on to me. Clearly “keeping stuff” was not exclusive to my mother’s side of the family. I didn’t really care for the locket—not my style—but having a penchant for rings, I was thrilled with its conversion to a ‘knuckle duster’ by a close friend and jewellery designer. We folded into the other half of the locket, another keepsake: the over fifty year old newspaper cutting which announced that I was dux of my primary school. The band of the new creation consists of the ‘melted down’ gold dux medal, another item that had stayed in its box from day one, aside from a bit of ‘show and tell’ whilst I briefly basked in the winner’s limelight!

Quirky bits: ‘curiouser and curiouser’ SAM

Sam has been with me since I existed, so the story goes and the photography proves I must have made a decision at some point that I should hang on to Sam for he has moved houses and countries with me, never protesting, never making a sound. I do not know Sam’s provenance, but he seems to have amused my tiny mind as the photo shows. A ridiculous toy for someone so young. I never really played with Sam, as he wasn’t a ‘cuddly toy’, but hard and awkward to hold. Sam mainly sat staring at me on a shelf. Somehow I felt sorry for Sam, which is why he has been a keeper. He still sits unblinking, just on a different shelf accompanied by three other childhood toys that for various reasons became ‘stuff to hang on to’.

I’m not sure exactly where I first saw one of Bella Freud’s designs, but it was the irreverent words on the T-shirt that got me: I had to find out more! I was familiar with Sigmund Freud, famed as the founder of psychoanalysis and interpretation of dreams, so it made sense to discover that Bella Freud, his great-granddaughter, used design to interpret her unique take on words, stories, thoughts etc. I love the fact that someone else approaches ‘things’ for the stories they tell and have become—slightly—obsessed with collecting the brand. You can look up the story of Hello Cunty for yourself, read Bella Freud’s Sunday Stories and listen to her fascinating podcasts: “Fashion Neurosis”. By the way, I’m choosy about where I wear my Hello Cunty: not everyone ‘gets’ a special greeting!

A final nod to my second home, Bella Freud’s ‘Fairy-tale of New York’ jumper, captured here in Wellington.