She makes buyer’s trips to Paris multiple times a year, collects Cèline handbags and Comme des Garçon anything, is an un-official La Mer ambassador and dabs babies nappy cream on spots. This is a snapshot into the life of prolific Australian style mainstay Eva Galambos, the founder and buyer of Sydney-based luxury boutique Parlour X.

She’s dead serious about the butt cream, you guys.

“For blemishes I use Ella Bache Index 2,” she explains, “and if you don’t have that particular product handy, try your baby’s nappy cream – I swear by Destin!”

Evidently, Ms Eva takes the term ‘hands-on mum’ to another level. By day she sorts and curates the freshest runway stories and looks from the designers she – and, by extension, her clients – love the most: “Cèline, Chloé, Comme des Garçon, Stella McCartney, Valentino and Balenciaga. Comme and Junya Watanabe are definitely brands I have loved and admired for years.”

It’s that juxtaposition of masculine and feminine influences, and mix of timeless luxury classics like Valentino versus the truly directional avant garde Japanese innovators that keep her loyal clients interested after over a decade in the biz.

“Style can be driven by an artistic edge,” she explains. “Some of the most stylish people I consider have unusual, interesting looks, which may not be widely considered to be beautiful.”

Eva’s most treasured item of clothing, for example, is a reversible Comme runway coat “which I consider to be like a work of art.”

“On the one side it looks like the perfect floor length double-breasted overcoat and on the other side it looks like a babushka doll coatdress with tapestry, embroidery and beading with voluminous sleeves.”

Listening to Eva go into the minutiae of a single piece of clothing makes it clear how much she sincerely loves the artistry of fashion.

Of her personal style, she says it is reflected every day by her mood and the weather but is always styled, considered and feminine.

“I take great pleasure in fashion so I like to think that I have a strong sense of fun without appearing too serious and formal,” she says.

After business hours, she maintains her diminutive physique going toe-to-toe with her two daughters, Alexa and Paloma.

Exercise, she says, consists of pilates once a week. “Although, does being a full time working mum and chasing after a 2 year old & 5 year old, practicing cartwheels and jumping on the trampoline with them regularly, count?”

Sure! So too do those routine Paris sojourns.

“My buying trips are incredibly busy and I am often racing from one showroom to the next, so that keeps me very fit. I always feel the muscle memory in my legs returning each time I am back in Paris.”

We should be so lucky.

Photographed by Rudy Zverina

Words by Susannah Tucker


Her Style File