Opinion
The verdict is in on Mecca’s new flagship store, and it’s a winner
Damien Woolnough
Fashion editorIt’s clearer than the skin of a K-pop star that Mecca founder Jo Horgan wants her new flagship store in Bourke Street Mall to become a leading Melbourne tourist destination, but is it up there with the National Gallery of Victoria or more in line with the infamous “Yellow Peril” sculpture?
At the crowded store preview for beauty lovers, influencers and media, the elbows were out and the extensions were in as people raced to experience hair treatments, fragrance consultations, skin analysis and the cafeteria before the side doors open to the public on Friday (the front doors should be operational by November).
Three years ago, if I had been standing in the mall opposite Myer, I would have been in the David Jones menswear store instead of drowning in a sea of women who have conquered contouring and fake eyelash application. The former home of suits and designer Y-fronts has been lavishly transformed into a literal Mecca for women.
Former AFLW player Akec Makur Chuot experiences the new Mecca flagship in Melbourne.Credit: Eddie Jim
This may be a woman’s world but here is the well-moisturised man’s view. If you’re worried about my qualifications, I’ve been writing about beauty since I went to France in 2009 to see how Chanel No.5 is made and have been obsessed with skincare since Olay was Oil of Ulan.
The look: At 4000 square metres, it’s big. The CJ Olive Young flagship in Seoul, Korea, is a larger beauty destination at a reported 4628 square metres, but stores are like pimples: bigger isn’t always better.
For most Melburnians, it should be enough that the footprint is more than twice the size of Sydney’s Mecca flagship on George Street. This should have them smiling before seeing the extensive range of skincare, spanning from $27 lip balms by Zoe Foster Blake’s brand, Go-To, to the $864 Augustinus Bader moisturisers.
“I’ve never ever seen a store like it,” says UK hair colourist Josh Wood, who has worked with Kylie Minogue and David Beckham. Wood has opened his first salon outside the UK in the building. “I’ve been looking at the plans for two years but when I walked through the doors, I was completely blown away. It’s the future of beauty.”
There’s a sense of discovery as you wander from brow bars with Hollywood mirror lighting to Charlotte Tilbury foundations taking root beneath a golden palm tree. The cavernous space is artfully divided by texture, colour and curtains across three floors.
Eclectic doesn’t come close to covering the fun house approach of design firm Studio McQualter, responsible for the poetic visual language of billion-dollar fashion brand Zimmermann’s boutiques. They have created something beautiful rather than stuffy, sparking the type of joy that makes spending your weekly wage on skincare seem natural.
“They have thought about every single thing and I love that so many Melbourne brands are featured such as Flowers Vasette and Coffee from Seven Seeds,” says Nadia Bartel, founder of the Henne fashion brand. “It’s just beautiful. This whole fragrance section is just insane.
“I love my beauty, so it’s just amazing.”
The verdict: It is the most ambitious, sprawling luxury retail experience to arrive in the city since Country Road’s visionary founder Stephen Bennett breathed life into the old Georges department store on Collins St in 1998. That elegant and aspirational store, targeted at people with refined tastes (and matching budgets), was ahead of its time, closing the following year.
Mecca’s new flagship is well and truly of its time, from the Lune croissants in the cafeteria to the piercing station. The result must be source of pride for Bennett, who has been a mentor for Horgan for 28 years.
The store’s real success is feeling luxurious and welcoming at the same time. There were none of the queues found outside the French fashion boutiques dotted along Collins Street, with an experience of equal refinement once inside.
On the retail road map, it occupies a comfortable space of “masstige” or accessible luxury, sitting somewhere between Uniqlo and Hermes, that is well worth a side trip.
As a tourist destination for visitors to Bourke Street Mall, it offers a showcase of Australian entrepreneurship and Melbourne creativity with its thoughtful selection of local brands. This is a welcome antidote to some of its fast-fashion neighbours and the Popmart on its doorstep, with people queueing for Labubus.
If tourists want to feel beautiful on the inside, they should still bask in the NGV’s art, but if they don’t like what they see reflected in the water wall, they should head off to the Mecca to start work on the outside.
Unlike Vault, the sculpture nicknamed the Yellow Peril, which moved from the City Square to Batman Park and then the Malthouse, it’s not going anywhere.
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