Welcome to Woollahra Village
Welcome to Woollahra, Sydney’s most beautiful shopping village, a unique collection of fashion boutiques, speciality stores, of Sydney's finest food stores, cafes and restaurants, galleries, hotels and services. With so many quality shops and businesses all within a few minutes walk of each other, Woollahra is the perfect destination for a day out, to shop and meet friends in stylish and relaxed surroundings.

Enjoy the contemporary and heritage architecture in the surrounding streets including Queen St, Moncur St, Holdsworth St, Spicer St, Jersey Rd, Ocean St, John St, Rush St, Wallis St and Victoria Avenue.

Located in the heart of Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, Woollahra is only minutes from the Sydney CBD and from Sydney’s North Shore. Un-metered parking is available and public transport can deliver you to the centre of the village – see the location page of this website for further information.

The businesses you will find in this website are committed to bringing you Sydney’s best customer service and a relaxed and enjoyable shopping and leisure experience. Join our free email newsletter for Woollahra Village news, VIP offers, previews, special events, sales and shopping discounts.

Meet a local business...

Reads of Woollahra
Mary Read has operated the well-known Reads of Woollahra for over 35 years and has recently also started an online operation.

Woollahra Village: How long has Reads been in business in Woollahra?

Mary Read: Reads was established in 1976. Previously, another fashion business, Frangipani, owned by Frances Stafford, daughter of Paula Stafford (the famous Gold Coast ‘bikini queen’), was at this address and we bought that business out in 1978. Reads, was originally called Reads Town and Country. We originally had both women’s fashions and menswear. Around 1980 we started to concentrate just on women’s fashions.

Woollahra Village: Where do you source your fashions?

Mary Read: We specialise in Australian fashion as well as specially selected and imported labels from the UK, USA, Italy, France and New Zealand that we feel are compatible with the modern Australian fashion sense. We try and stock fashions appealing to many different types of clients from early 20s right through to an older clientele. Our range is eclectic and suitable for casual to business needs and semi-formal garments. All our fashions are complemented with shoes from Italy, France and Spain and a range of well chosen accessories.

Woollahra Village: How did the ReadsOnline.com.au business get started?
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Mary Read: ReadsOnline.com.au is a snapshot of the collection in our Queen Street, Woollahra store and is our personalised online shopping service. It represents most but not all of our store range. We have a lot of country customers who are using it as well as interstate clients and we also find a lot of our regular store customers are now coming into the store asking for garments and accessories they saw on ReadsOnline.com.au. It complements our store business, it certainly doesn’t replace it. It attracts very much the same shoppers...our online customers are not noticeably any younger or older than our store customers.

Woollahra Village: How did you personally get started in Reads?

Mary Read: After studying Interior Design and Arts and missing out on getting into Film & Television School and not really know what to do, I ended up working in fashion. I had a great teacher, Frances Stafford, who was one of the early boutique owners in Sydney. It was a great grounding for the fashion industry and has led to a wonderful life filled with beautiful clothes and wonderful, loyal customers in one of Sydney's most beautiful suburbs.

Woollahra Village: You also had the Cambodia House business for many years?

Mary Read: Cambodia House was a not-for-profit business to support non-government income generating projects and businesses in Cambodia that make fabrics, fashion accessories and homewares. It created a maker-to-wholesaler-to-retail channel for those producers, many of whom were very basic arts and crafts based workers. All the profits were ploughed back into development programs, working with a number of other aid partners, to raise production standards and marketing skills. In 2010 I decided that it was best for me to step out of the retail link in that work and enable the producers to develop a broader base of wholesale customers and agents in Australia. This has developed quite well and we now have a number of Australian wholesalers and retailers plugged into the network, buying directly from the Cambodian producers. I am still involved with the Cambodia House Project. Reads is still committed to supporting our producers in Cambodia and have recently supported training activities by providing financial support and also assisted in turning one of our producer’s stores into a cafe and retail outlet, VillageWorks Songkhem.

Woollahra Village: What do you think the future holds for the Woollahra shopping precinct?

Mary Read: Retail and service businesses often face tough times, but I think we have a unique advantage in Woollahra by having boutiques that provide outstanding quality, variety and service, as well as a broad mixture of businesses that appeal to shoppers and offer them everything from everyday basic food and groceries, through to boutiques, galleries and antique shops, great cafes, pubs and restaurants, health studios and beauty salons. There is also an amazing selection of professional businesses such as real estate, legal and financial services. I don’t think there’s another part of Sydney that offers such a diverse range of businesses and service for both residents and visitors and I think this will continue to attract new businesses and keep residents satisfied for many years to come. Recent events such as the Woollahra Festival and Pink Week also show how well the local businesses and community click together.


Click here to read about some other businesses that have featured in our website recently.