Boss plans 800sqm pop-up at Australian Open 2027

Global fashion brand Hugo Boss will open an 800 square metre, two-level pop-up store at the Australian Open, as the German fashion house uses its first year as the tournament’s official lifestyle outfitter to grow its profile in Australia.

The brand presented the partnership to media and industry at an event in Melbourne this week, offering a first look at the Boss x AO capsule ahead of the Australian Open 2027.

Boss first announced the deal in April. It takes over the outfitting role from Ralph Lauren, which had dressed the tournament’s on-court officials and ballkids since 2021.

Under the partnership, Boss will dress up to 4,000 staff, officials, umpires and ballkids, with replica teamwear also available to consumers. The capsule extends to pinstripe tailoring, technical outerwear, off-court casualwear, knitwear, footwear, accessories and kidswear, alongside pieces with more subtle co-branding for everyday wear. 

Boss branding will also feature around the venue, including inside Rod Laver Arena.

Hugo Boss SEAPAC managing director Matthew Keighran said the tournament’s audience gives the brand a platform to broaden its reach beyond its core menswear customer.

“We are well known, particularly in the menswear field,” Keighran said in a Q&A session at the launch event this week.“The fact that we do womenswear is known in certain circles, but not necessarily as broadly as it is for menswear.”

He noted tennis viewership was fairly evenly split by gender, and added that the timing coincided with the arrival of a new global womenswear lead at the brand – Kerstin Dorst, who took on the role of SVP business unit womenswear in January this year. 

Boss’ pop-up will house the full Boss x AO offer, with the second level dedicated to the brand’s more elevated product. Keighran said the store would be set up within a couple of weeks, describing it as a scale of build the brand had not attempted locally before.

“We like to consider ourselves a 24/7 lifestyle brand. So it’s on court, beside the court, after the court,” he said.

Keighran added that merchandise such as tennis towels had proven a surprisingly significant category, serving as both souvenirs and an entry point for shoppers new to the brand.

He linked the appeal of tennis-led fashion to its positioning as aspirational yet accessible, which he said mirrored the Boss brand. He also noted that the sport’s popularity across the Asia Pacific made the region’s grand slam a strategic fit.

“It’s aspirational but yet accessible, and this is how we also see our brand. Walk on in. We’re not going to have ropes at the front of the stores,” Keighran said.

Selected garments in the range use NovaPoly, a yarn Hugo Boss reported is made from 100 per cent textile waste and treated with an additive designed to support biodegradation at end-of-life under defined conditions.

Tennis Australia CEO Andrew Abdo said the partnership would elevate the experience of players, officials and fans through performance and lifestyle wardrobes, pointing to a shared commitment to sustainability. Abdo and Keighran were joined by former world number one Pat Rafter for a panel discussion at the launch.

Boss’s tennis ties date back to the 1980s, when it began a 15-year sponsorship of the Davis Cup. Since 2022 it has been title sponsor of the Boss Open, an ATP 250 tournament in Stuttgart, and its brand ambassadors include Taylor Fritz and Matteo Berrettini.

The partnership will roll out through further product launches, retail activations and content leading into the 2027 tournament.

Hugo Boss operates 485 Boss stores worldwide and posted sales of EUR 4.3 billion in the 2025 financial year – equivalent to around $6.8 billion in AUD.