“Living up to the Legacy”: Historic Australian Department Store Mark Foy’s Is Back

For almost 100 years, Mark Foy’s represented the peak of luxury department stores in Australia. From its establishment in 1885 by brothers Francis and Mark Foy, the bold-thinking and grandiose boutique defined leisure and fashion for generations of Australians. Its mammoth flagship Piazza store opened on Sydney’s Liverpool Street in 1908 – a towering, expansive shopping destination inspired by Parisian department stores.

From there, Mark Foy’s hit milestone after milestone. It was the first to bring Dior’s New Look to Australia, and its Piazza location had the first public escalator in Australia. The flagship store was also home to a restaurant, a post office, an ice-skating rink and a ballroom (which Elizabeth Taylor danced in). It was the embodiment of glitz and glamour.

In 1980, after a couple of decades of rocky business, Mark Foy’s shut its doors. Around the same time, Mark Foy was born. As the great-grandson of Hugh Victor Foy, the youngest of the Foy brothers and the store’s managing director for three decades, the young Mark Foy naturally heard all about his pioneering ancestors growing up.

Little did he know that in 2026, he would be relaunching his family’s legacy. In May, after 26 years of working in real estate, Foy unveiled a new chapter for Mark Foy’s – a digital-only fashion marketplace.

“It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do. When I’ve sat around the kitchen table listening to my grandfather, listening to my father and my uncle speak … Hearing those stories, it really made me think about where I was in my journey,” Foy says, via video call from France.

Back in the early 20th century, his great-grandfather completed 13 buying trips to Europe by boat. The parallels are here now, with Foy based out of Europe while he meets with brands, distributors and boutiques to source stock for the website.

“One of the things that Mark Foy’s did extremely well was they’d bring the very best of European fashion to Australia. It was super unique at the time, and it was brought to the Australian public at the very best prices. That’s what we’re trying to do today … We’re a digital reimagining of Mark Foy’s.”

There are currently 78 brands on the new store’s books, from Saint Laurent (its Lou Camera bag has been “super popular”) and Prada to Jacquemus and Balenciaga. Zimmermann is the only Australian brand listed so far, but Foy says he’s in conversations with other local “high-end” brands as well.

Unlike its predecessor, the new Mark Foy’s won’t be warehousing any physical goods. Instead, it’s using a drop-shipping approach. It partners with brands and licensees from Europe and lists their products on its digital shopfront. Once a sale is made, Mark Foy’s arranges the shipping and orders arrive in five days.

“We don’t own the stock, we don’t hold the stock,” he says. “It allows us to be nimble and fast in these marketplaces, which you’ve got to be in order to be ahead of the rest.”

And how does Mark Foy’s plan to stand out from the rest? “Most online retail today is built around endless choice. We’re focused on trusted choice,” Foy says. “There are so many little brands and boutiques over in Europe who just don’t get the spotlight in Australia, so that’s what we’re aiming for.”

When asked whether a store might be on the cards in the future, Foy is realistic. “I think [ecommerce is] an incredibly difficult space … Our platform, our business model, doesn’t allow for it at the minute. If it did in the future, fantastic, I think it’d be really cool. But for now, with what we’re trying to achieve in the next three to five years, it just doesn’t allow for it at all.”

The biggest challenge is “living up to the legacy,” he says. “The shoes are big to fill. We want to make sure that we do our best to bring the brand forward and reimagine it in today’s world. We want to honour that the best we can.”

It’s been under two months since the relaunch. Foy and his seven-person team are celebrating the early wins as they come. “To hear stories from people coming into the store when it was a physical store, even stories of people’s parents and grandparents meeting in the store, it’s pretty cool … It just goes to show that we’re on the right track, and we’re bringing something back that should be here.”

mark-foys.com