uxury piercing studio and fine jewellery retailer to deliver precisely that sensation. Lawrence’s proposition brings two retail components into the same room: the finesse of fine jewellery and the professionalism of piercing. Covetear leads with authority in piercing because, as she puts it, “the piercing doesn’t end with the piercing”. Healing can take months, requiring aftercare, troubleshooting and occasional intervention. Customers commonly arrive carrying a Pinterest image and a fixed plan, and more than half leave with a different arrangement. “Every ear is different,” Lawrence explained, and the practitioner’s task is to preserve desire while explaining physical limits. A helix, conch or stacked lobe must suit the cartilage, spacing and tissue available. Older customers often bring “legacy piercings” and scar tissue, while stretched lobes may require constellations of smaller pieces or a referral to a plastic surgeon.  Women in their 30s to 60s Lawrence explained that Covetear’s main clientele is diverse, with many women in their 30s to 60s, many of whom are treating themselves for birthdays, achievements or personal milestones. Piercing offers adornment, such as a subtle ear stud, with a degree of reversibility, while solid gold and diamonds are widely accepted as conventional jewellery. Lawrence sees that acceptance extends from workplaces to formal occasions. The most popular services remain lobes and stacked lobes, although she explained the revival of the 1990s style has concurrently lifted demand for belly piercings. Covetear introduced those only four months ago, once it had designed jewellery that met its quality requirements.  Two decades in fashion and running her own brands, including Toi et Moi, taught Lawrence the commercial usefulness of restraint. “I’ve made many, many, many errors over the years in wanting to do too much in collections and trying to do too many things,” she said. Covetear instead focuses on staple pieces meant to stay in place from morning to night, and Lawrence herself has 24 ear piercings and little appetite for daily jewellery changes. Many designs are calibrated for a specific site, allowing a helix piece to sit correctly in a helix and a conch piece to sit correctly in a conch. Creative agency, Smack Bang, whose roster includes PE Nation, created the brand identity. The stores were designed as calm, unisex environments with repeatable sensory cues, so a customer pierced in Sydney can visit Melbourne and encounter the same look, smell and service. Yet Covetear’s appeal has escaped the treatment room. Lawrence says 35 per cent of sales occur online, independent of piercing appointments, and 15 per cent of that online revenue comes from international customers, including buyers in New York and Los Angeles. “These are people in countries that have a plethora of brands to choose from, and they’re choosing to buy from us and have it shipped from little old Australia,” she said. “I guess we’re doing something right.” Lawrence uses lab-grown diamonds from one highly certified manufacturer, with pieces made to order in dimensions as small as 1.2 millimetres, barely wider than a one-millimetre piercing needle. Lawrence says this eliminates waste at a miniature scale. The jewellery is also modular, and customers can retain posts and replace decorative fronts, while a “circular piercing experience” reuses the front component and changes only the post at a discount. Future collaborations with lab-diamond designers may introduce larger pieces for fully healed ears.  Covetear has thus made aftercare, compliance and anatomy feel every bit as covetable as the jewellery itself. Lawrence began with the feeling that her own birthday piercing had failed to deliver and built the business around delivering what others might have missed. Piercing, she said, is “definitely delivering that feel-good moment that people are looking for”. Speaking to Gill, you can see that there is confidence that the jewellery is beautiful, that the placement is right, and that the customer will still be cared for long after leaving the store.