SYDNEY: UK womenswear label Coast London will launch an Australian flagship in October, ahead of a major retail roll out of the brand across the country.
UK womenswear label Coast London will launch an Australian flagship store in October, ahead of a major retail roll-out of the brand across the country.
Operated in Australia by Melbourne-based company Karen Millen Australia, the store will be located in the new Westfield development in central Sydney.
The 130sqm space will be the brand’s second retail operation in Australia, with a smaller site opened in Wesley Quarter, Perth, in April this year.
Karen Millen Australia director Shaf Dewani said the company intends to roll out between 20 and 30 Coast London stores nationally within three to five years, as well as some in New Zealand.
“We think that will be across boutiques and concessions, so at some point we will select a concession partner, but only after we build our stand-alone footprint and we see that the brand will develop through those two channels,” Dewani said.
He said the Sydney flagship will be positioned in the centre’s Designer Gallery, near entry level luxury labels such as Karen Millen, Ted Baker and Australian designers.
The space will feature salon-style dressing rooms to allow room for a free, one-on-one private styling service called Coast by Appointment.
Product will be delivered approximately three to six months behind the UK seasons, with two key seasons and eight sub-collections in each. New drops will hit stores every three or four weeks. Prices start at around $150 and rise to $500.
“It has a particular aesthetic which is very feminine and very clean, very polished, very pretty and elegant,” he said. “We see the brand evolve more on the basis of its own individual style rather than necessarily chasing what the particular trends are.”
Karen Millen Australia also operates 20 Karen Millen brand stores in Australia and has plans to open up to 12 more in coming years.
“We are very high double-digit, like-for-like percentage growth and our discounts as a percentage of sales are the lowest that we have ever had,” he said.
Both Coast London and Karen Millen are owned by UK-based fashion house Aurora Fashions.
The group also runs womenswear labels Warehouse and Oasis. It operates around 1377 stores across 47 countries, of which Dewani said around 285 are Coast London.
Melinda Oliver