Up There

As part of a major refresh of the Up There brand, Kennedy Nolan was asked to design a new flagship store on Flinders Lane – a street synonymous with innovation, design, hospitality and fashion. Being a street which is quintessentially Melbourne, Flinders Lane was undoubtably the appropriate location for Up There’s new principal home.

We began the process by attempting to understand the brand, getting to know the product, but also developing an insight into the culture of Up There.  The brand has a cult following because it has an uncanny insight into its customer – a committed Melbournian with a global outlook. 

The brand refresh provided an immediate inspiration, providing a playful palette of saturated colour. We were also inspired by the distinctive space: partially subterranean, it is situated at the base of the superb Herald and Weekly Times building and is characterised by a deep plan opening up at its farthest point to the atmospheric urban gloom of Sargood Lane.

In conjunction with our Clients, we set out a brief for a store interior which was to be theatrical, cinematic, abstract, curated, expansive and memorable in the sense of having a strong visual and experiential association with the brand. Our practice has always invoked the power of colour as a mnemonic, believing that places, experiences and emotions can be strongly associated with specific colours.  We proposed an intense green ground plane.  Green is a key colour for Up There, but is also a colour we feel is oddly grounding – resonant of a grassy field.  The ceilings are blanketed in an inky green, helping to de-limit the edges by plunging them into shadow.  Merchandise is organised into discrete zones, a ‘concession’ approach which reflects some key characteristics of the brand – curating and displaying stock in themes, providing scope for collaborations, events and exclusive releases.

Up There want to be a good host to their customers – as such, there is an emphasis on places to hang out in the store. While all spaces are social, at the very end of the store there is a large table and generous banquettes; a spot to try on some trainers, have a coffee from the in-house café or patiently lie on the banquette willing your friend to make a decision or regret the night before.

Fashion has a theatrical element in the sense that it allows people to project a desired persona. Even at its most low-key, there is the idea of signalling to your tribe through a shared look or vibe. We wanted to elevate the thrill of constructing a persona or finding the piece that identifies you as a member of a sub-culture or simply resonates with your true self. The design announces to the customer the paradigm shift they are about to experience upon entering the store, achieved through an emphasis on threshold. Upon entering, the customer is greeted by a shallow flight of three steps with a strongly tactile surface. This signals entry to another state or place by slowing their gait and changing the sensation underfoot, delivering them down to the texturally and aurally soft floor plane of carpet.  From there, they move through a gathering of suspended bust forms and emerge into the store proper.  A long central table is backlit and glows with programmable lighting which can change to suit the time of day, the theme of the store curation or as an intriguing object drawing the eye into the store after hours.

Each element of the store has been considered through a rich and enjoyable collaboration with a highly design-literate Client: from the shimmering surfaces of flat and galvanised steel and the elevated experience of the fitting rooms with their secret salon, to the roughcast texture of the ‘concession’ shells and the overall colour palette of unexpected, saturated colour.  Guarding the entry and perhaps making the strongest visual imprint are the two ‘temple dogs’ at the front of the store – on the one hand they serve as vitrines for merchandise, but principally they are mascots for the store, that define the space as a place where something special happens and are there to welcome the customer back upon every visit.