Make the Pilgrimage to Mecca’s New Four-Level Sydney Flagship – the Largest Beauty Store in the Southern Hemisphere

Sydney will be looking a whole lot more beautiful this morning as the shiny new Mecca flagship opens in the historic Gowings Building in the CBD. Occupying four floors on the corner of Market and George streets, and spanning a whopping 1800 square metres, the colourful new space is the largest store dedicated to beauty in the Southern Hemisphere.

With bright walls, candy-striped floors and glittering mirrors everywhere you turn, stepping into the capacious beauty wonderland feels like mainlining a technicolour rom-com from 1953.

“I’m so happy. I’m thrilled,” Mecca founder and co-CEO Jo Horgan tells Broadsheet. “And I’m just hoping that every customer will have the same sense of joy and happiness that I get when I walk in here. It’s what we need right now. We want to make people look and feel their best.”

It’s more than just a shop. Much more. A third of the space is dedicated to beauty, health and wellbeing services – with facial aesthetician Van Park and naturopath Anthia Koullouros both on-site at the Mecca Service Suites (the treatment rooms even have a sneaky back exit for those who don’t want to face the world after their treatments). The flagship also offers a concierge service – a dedicated expert to talk customers through the various experiences, make bookings and personally edit what might feel like an overwhelming choice of products.

“The whole philosophy was to let us take you from novice to expert in whatever time you have, and in whatever area you want to immediately be in the know,” says Horgan. “That's our gift to you, the customer.”

Also on-site is jewellery designer Sarah & Sebastian, offering piercings and bracelet soldering, plus a hair salon run by Edwards and Co. Team members assist the online community at a virtual services hub, while Mecca’s much-loved edutainment and brand-immersion programs allow customers to experiment and discover new products at its beauty, skin, make-up and brow labs. A series of screens throughout the flagship allow for beauty-company founders from around the world to beam in, giving customers Youtube-style tutorials with the products in front of them.

There’s also the retailer’s largest-ever perfumeria, which sits alongside a fragrance consultation area, as well as a dedicated events space for classes and product launches and a gift-wrapping bar with designs exclusive to the store.

Long-time Mecca collaborator Meacham Nockles is the architect behind the metamorphosis of the art deco landmark, which last housed Topshop. Exposed ceilings showcase the bare bones of the heritage building and are the perfect foil to the glamorous and bedazzling tumult of vintage 1980s Murano glass chandeliers, neon-yellow lifts, terrazzo floors, marble and, on the lower ground floor, a glittering paillette ceiling made up of 30,000 steel pieces, each hung by hand.

There are digital backdrops peppered throughout, three-dimensional brand installations, and products pass through the different levels via a bright orange chute – it’s essentially Willy Wonka’s factory for the beauty world.

Along with all the brands customers know and love (including Mecca’s biggest Nars display, as well as Drunk Elephant, Sunday Riley and Byredo) the flagship will also be the first to carry new Mecca brands such as Vilhelm, Tom Ford, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, Kylie Skin, Moon Juice and Resoré.

“I’m hoping that when customers arrive they will split into all the different customer journeys that we imagined and that it will fulfill all those different sweet spots that we dreamt of,” says Horgan. “Everything from a quick blow dry or skin touch up, to a gaggle of friends enjoying the champagne wall, and a big half-day celebration for a wedding or an event. From the five-minute to the half-day experience – we have every beauty base covered.”

Mecca George Street
49–51 Market Street, Sydney
1800 007 844

Hours:
Mon to Wed, Fri & Sat 10am–6pm
Thu 10am–9pm
Sun 10am–5pm

mecca.com.au