GYPSY FINDS HER WAY AS CHERIE SHAMBALA

My life is a bit 'out there', like me, but I love it! Growing up on Sydney's Northern Beaches in the sixties was amazing — the bands, the colour, the freedom, the beach... Then it went out the window (like my bra)... I joined the navy and went to freezing Victoria. Discipline, and more discipline. "Hey wait a minute, where is Cherie and her adventurous spirit?!"  That was when I discovered Melbourne clothes shopping, the beautiful designs that just suited a shopaholic. I was a 'Skinny Minny', and at 17 I could wear anything, and did! Then I was sent to the tropics — Darwin, Northern Territory — so I cut holes in my mini dresses and had matching knickers. I really thought I was something, until I saw the Americans in Smith Street, wearing ten-gallon hats, boots and spurs (they were leasing 1,000-acre properties)… I thought a spaceship had landed. Darwin was the place — drifters, seasonal workers, travellers — all nationalities talking about their homelands gave me the travel bug. I did trips to Asia while on leave with the Navy. The day I finished, 4 years later, I was in Singapore. Then I went off to Thailand, and Nepal — it was 1973, and full of hippies. Amazing Kathmandu and the beautiful people and the Himalayas... I went overland on an old bus which took 3 months to get to London. Wow, the old hippy trail through the Khyber pass — such incredible diversity — and across the Bosporus to European Turkey. It was amazing... 21 years old and the world was yours. I had a ball. I traveled Europe, took a job dancing in the Middle East for a year, hitchhiked all over Europe and North Africa, then worked in Belgium. Still loving clothes, diversity, fashion. London was all the rage in fashion and I loved it. Always in my life I loved clothes and colour. I traveled to 55 countries, met amazing people, married twice, and had my beautiful son Joel (at present he is in Holland with his girlfriend whom he met surfing in Morocco- like mother like son!). I saw such amazing differences in the world from New Guinea to Cuba, Nepal to Argentina.
I woke up one day and said "I have a dream” — to travel the world and handpick beautiful clothing and accessories — fulfilling my passions of travel and shopping — and bring them back to Australia. At markets and online... and perhaps take my Prado and camper on a roadtrip at 64 years old. I deserve it. And guess what guys:  I am still a little 'out there'. But oh, what fun i have!!!  My husband thinks I am a little weird, and he could be right.

 LUV YA- CHERIE