This New Four-Storey Menswear Flagship Isn’t Just About Fashion – It’s About Food

You know Rodd & Gunn first for its smart-casual menswear and proud Kiwi heritage. Walking into the expansive new Melbourne flagship store, though, it’s clear that the brand is now happy letting its snappy sartorial style take a backseat to more immediate – and luxurious – experiences.

At its new four-storey art deco home on Little Collins Street (formerly David Jones and, once upon a time, Coles), just one level is devoted to Rodd & Gunn’s signature clothing. The rest of the building unfolds as a series of hospitality spaces: underground wine bars, wood-panelled cocktail lounges and high-ceilinged dining rooms. It’s not the first time the brand has ventured beyond retail, either. Rodd & Gunn began its flirtation with hospitality more than a decade ago with The Lodge Bar concept in Queenstown, followed by an expanding portfolio of New Zealand wines. This Melbourne opening, however, is its most ambitious foray into food yet.

Like the mega Mecca flagship one street over, the new Rodd & Gunn points to a broader shift in what retail looks like in the 2020s.

“It was about how to make retail engaging and interesting on a different level, as opposed to being purely transactional, and having that deeper emotional relationship with our customers,” says Josh Beagley, Rodd & Gunn’s director of hospitality.

Customers will still find the fashion they expect from the Kiwi clothier, though here it’s housed on the first floor in a space styled with art deco carpets and Chicago Gothic architectural references. Designed by Melbourne interior design firm Studio Y, the floor marks a deliberate departure from the brand’s classic aesthetic.

“It was about bringing that Melbourne perspective,” he says. “We had this opportunity of really leaning into the heritage of the building, which has a lot of beautiful original art deco elements, and then we’ve got this 100-year-old building itself. We were like, ‘How do we make it sympathetic to the building, and sympathetic to the central Melbourne locality overall?’”

The real hospitality begins one level down, in an expansive wine cellar. The space is a real mix: there’s casual Italian dining, alongside open shelves showing off New Zealand wines from legends like Craggy Range – all available to take away or drink in – and diner-style booths. The menu down here focuses on hearty Italian dishes like Great Ocean Road duck ragu with tagliatelle, chicken cotoletta with anchovy brown butter, and sizable slabs of house-made focaccia. The subterranean space is also home to a cocktail laboratory, helmed by former Bar Americano owner Matt Bax, who has brought his Negroni expertise with him.

Two flights up sits a low-ceilinged, leather-clad members’ bar – a space that feels transported from another era. The focus here is firmly on the drinks, with classic cocktails and restrained variations built around local and New Zealand spirits. A house take on the Martini, for example, features Central Otago’s Scapegrace gin finished with a few drops of Lot No. 8 lemon olive oil from Martinborough.

Finally, at the very top is the Lodge dining room. The restaurant here is decked out with blue-hued art deco banquettes and Aztec-ish tiles lit by the room’s towering windows. Compared to the cellar’s casual menu, dining at the top is designed to be taken a little slower, and the culinary team skews slightly more modern with the dining room menu compared to the underground Italian below. Dishes like the two cuts of Roaring Forties lamb – loin and belly – and the fennel, apricot and Earl Grey tea cake are decidedly daintier and more sophisticated.

As the reinvention of 280 Little Collins Street shows, Rodd & Gunn has become as focused on what goes into our bodies – great food and drink, ideally – as it is on what we put on our bodies. For Beagley, the interconnected warren of spaces is about offering experiences that extend well beyond a traditional shopping trip.

“You come in and start at the members’ bar for a cocktail before dinner,” he says. “Head upstairs to The Lodge dining room for a beautiful dinner, and then down to the Cellar for an end-of-night bottle of wine. And you don’t even need to leave the building. That’s kind of the magical part about it all. You get three different experiences within our four levels of this building. It’s definitely unique for a retailer – definitely a bespoke offering, that’s for sure.”

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Rodd & Gunn. Venue open for lunch and dinner. For more information and to book your next visit in advance, head here.