Just off Deloraine’s main street, you can find a vibrant shop full of creativity and community. The Kollective, and its founder Danni Carr are making waves. Carr is a hairdresser, shop owner, maker, and, as she modestly puts it, someone who just “likes to help people.”
Opened in mid 2025, The Kollective is more than a standard retail space. It is a curated collection of handmade crafts, art, and clothing, showcasing the work of 44 creators, many of whom live locally. “I’ve got the awesome Lucky Platypus. She makes jumpers and all the wooly stuff,” Carr says. “I’ve got a potter, Jan. She makes some really cool coffee mugs and things like that and I’ve got a little old lady who knits the old school little baby outfits. She’s 91 and I sell heaps of those.”
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Carr shares the shop space and rent with her friend Vince, a local tattooist. The two first connected when Carr walked into his previous shop to get a tattoo. “We became friends and he found out I was a hairdresser,” she says. That connection eventually led to them setting up under one roof, combining their trades and creating a shared creative space in the middle of town.
Carr moved to Deloraine from North Queensland six years ago, drawn to the area initially for her son’s schooling. “My boy’s autistic, so we moved down because of the support here,” she explains, referencing the Giant Steps school that serves children with autism. But the move had deeper roots. “I came to Tasmania when I was 12 from Western Australia on a school trip and always said I’d live here,” she recalls. A chance drive through Deloraine years later reignited that memory. “I remember driving across the bridge and going, ‘wow, this is beautiful.’”
Her background is in hairdressing. Carr once ran a busy salon in North Queensland. The Kollective marks a more relaxed chapter. “This is my retirement job,” she laughs. “I’m still raising my boy. He’s still quite young. Just chill out, hang out here and not work too hard, even though I’m doing longer days.”
The shop also serves as a haircutting bar and a space for her own jewellery-making. But its broader mission is to be a platform for others. “If I can help someone get started and make them some money, that’s what I want to do,” she says. “Money’s not the be all and end all, but we do need it.”
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That ethos has made The Kollective a magnet for local makers. “They just seem to have heard about me, and they come in and they’re looking around and I say, what do you make?” she says with a smile. “It’s very organic.”
Though slightly set back from the main road, the shop attracts a steady stream of customers, mostly locals but with occasional tourists as well. “We don’t get a lot of foot traffic, but I seem to get repeat people coming through,” Carr notes. “I just like to keep things affordable so they do come back and buy Christmas presents, birthday presents, all of that kind of thing.”
Plans for the future reflect Carr’s community-minded approach. “I’m doing up another room here,” she says, adding that she is bringing in people who do beauty treatments and massage, and potentially a body piercer. She envisions a “little hub” with shared space, including a friend’s bookstore, and maybe even a market day in the car park. “I want to start doing different art classes or whatever people want to teach.”
Despite her unassuming tone, Carr’s role as a connector and organiser is clear. “It just happens. It just keeps rolling along,” she says.
