Same Faces, New Space at Studio Calia
A fresh name, a fresh start and she’s just getting started. Jodie Cameron meets a local business owner doing things her way…
Sometimes reinvention doesn’t mean starting from scratch. Sometimes it means taking everything you already are and rearranging it into something that fits better. For Alicia Davies-Crampton, owner of Studio Calia Hair Artistry in Sunshine Cove Maroochydore, that moment arrived and she didn’t flinch. What followed was equal parts intention, grace, and some stunning wallpaper.
A hair salon is an intimate space – we come in carrying the week on our shoulders, yet somehow always leave feeling like ourselves again. We tell our hairdressers everything, well at least I do! So it’s important it feels like a safe space. This is exactly the kind of vibe Studio Calia delivers. Previously known as Clay & Co, the salon has been rebranded and refitted from the ground up. Lighter, brighter and with a warmth that welcomes all.
Studio Calia is a space that has been deliberately reimagined. But the story behind the name is perhaps the most telling detail of all. Calia is an anagram of Alicia. The same letters, rearranged into something entirely new.
“I didn’t want my name on the door,” Alicia says. “But when we started playing with the letters, this word kept coming back to us. And when we looked into it, in Greek mythology ‘Calia’ means ‘beautiful’. It just felt right.”
That detail speaks volumes – pardon the pun – and says everything about the woman behind it. Someone who didn’t set out to make it about herself, but ultimately created something that reflects her completely. And if the name is personal, the refit is a tribute to her team. Alicia is quick to redirect any credit, pointing firmly toward the two senior stylists who have been with her from the very beginning.
“This was never about me, it’s always been about the team,” she says. “These two ladies have been here for six years – from day one, from the moment this salon was originally built. So when we did the rebrand and refit, it was based on what they wanted it to look like, because they’re in here every day. I’m not.”
Claire was one of the first to come knocking when the salon was still a grass patch and a sign out front. The other stylist, Peri, was Alicia’s next-door neighbour – and when Alicia decided to take the salon fully under her wing, Peri packed up her life, and her son, and moved back to be part of it.
“They’re both mums, both incredibly experienced, award-winning stylists,” Alicia says. “They’re two of the best.”
It’s that loyalty – fierce, mutual, and the kind you hold on to when you find it – that pulses through Studio Calia, and the space reflects it. Gone is the previous dark, industrial aesthetic. In its place, something warm and accommodating, designed so that every client walks in and immediately feels at ease.
Working exclusively with L’Oréal, Studio Calia offers a full menu of hair services – from cuts and colour to balayage, foils and blowouts – alongside beard and edge trims for the men who have quickly become regulars since the refit. Behind the chair are two award-winning stylists who between them bring decades of experience to every appointment.
And with wallpaper from Alicia’s other business, The Wallpaper People – chosen by the team – the walls are a reflection of the vision Studio Calia sits alongside The Wallpaper People, and an aged care service that Alicia runs with her daughter and thirty staff. Running three very different enterprises requires clarity, strategy, and an unshakeable belief in the people around you.
“I wasn’t a wallpaper expert when I purchased my wallpaper company,” she says. “But I surround myself with good people. The best team, accountant, lawyer, and I think anyone can do that.”
It’s the kind of confidence that comes not from having everything figured out, but from having weathered enough to know you will figure it out. Asked what success looks like for Studio Calia in three years, Alicia doesn’t hesitate.
“Still having this amazing team and growing together, maybe a barber one day,” she says. “But mostly – still here, still doing this, just bigger.”
When the old walls don’t fit anymore, strip them back and build something more beautiful. Alicia Davies-Crampton has done exactly that – and she’s not looking back.
To book an appointment visit www.studiocalia.com.au
