LUXE FILES

Australia's most beloved beauty retailer opens a colossal new Melbourne flagship.

- BY KIRSTIE CLEMENTS

THE EXTRAORDINARY prescience of Mecca founder and co-CEO Jo Horgan regarding the potential of the beauty and wellness space has been cemented by the opening of a landmark store in Bourke Street, Melbourne – almost 60 times bigger than the first Toorak Road store, which opened in 1997, and a shining beacon of joy and discovery for beauty fanatics, that is, all of us.

“The store is the most ambitious love letter we have ever written – to beauty, to design, to our customers and to Melbourne,” says Jo, who employed Studio McQualter for the project. Apart from retail, it houses a perfumeria, skin clinic, beauty atelier for hair, makeup, nails and piercings, and an apothecary, auditorium and cafe. “We've worked with Studio McQualter for 20 years. They understand Mecca, and beauty. Our brief centred on radical generosity, joyful experimentation and sensory storytelling. How can we expand what beauty is, and where it’s going?”