ep 064: Carey Hulshof

The Craft with May Globus

Carey Hulshof is as sharp as they come. The founder of concept store Secret Location (@slocation) has a mind that operates a mile a minute, making connections and conjuring up future-forward ideas quickly and seemingly with great ease.

She grew up in a close, supportive family steeped in generations of agriculture. Time was often spent with siblings and cousins playing outside, surrounded by animals. Even then, Carey was entrepreneurial, who didn’t particularly enjoy being told she couldn’t do something.

As a young adult, she moved to Milan, where she did her masters degree in design, eventually working in trend forecasting & fashion design. In 2012, she founded Secret Location, the first concept store in Canada. It was originally a pet project plan while she was living in Italy—until it eventually became a true reality.

A lesser known fact about Carey: she's been deeply involved in her family’s agriculture business, as often the only female and the youngest person in the room with a seat at the industry table. She had a big hand in moving the family operations into a holistic management system to lessen negative impact on the land and on climate, and continues to cultivate her relationship with the land and with farmers who’ve been around for decades.

In this episode, we explore where her eye for beauty and fashion comes from; how living in Milan challenged her mindset; trend forecasting, the traits one must have to do this well & what she sees coming; her process when it comes to working with interior design clients; the secret to her store’s longevity; her long-term sustainable vision in farming, food production & how we treat and understand the land; what we can do to improve agriculture across the world; and much more.

TIMESTAMPS

4:42 - Growing up

7:06 - What Carey was like as a child

7:30 - Where the rebellious nature comes from

8:07 - Was she entrepreneurial too

9:19 - Was Carey the same as a teenager

9:48 - Travelling

12:36 - Where the eye for design came from

17:33 - What led to her founding Secret Location

19:24 - Trend forecasting

23:07 - Interior design service offering

26:16 - Her favourite space to design

27:39 - Reason for Secret Location’s longevity

28:24 - What she learned the most from owning a restaurant

30:21 - Ranching

32:53 - What it’s like to be a woman and a younger individual in the agricultural business

34:36 - How Carey would evolve the agricultural industry

36:09 - How we can get more people to care about agriculture and food production

37:13 - How much is produced locally

39:53 - What interesting things around the world can be implemented here

42:11 - How She cultivates her relationship with the land

46:02 - Farming against nature and farming with nature

56:41 - When life forces you to slow down

1:01:00 - What kind of mother she hopes to be

1:03:02 - Final Question