Zara Adelaide

Last Thursday I was lucky enough to be invited to the media tour/opening of Zara at Burnside Village. On arrival we were gifted with a lovely leather tote bag and a usb with photos of Zara's latest lookbook.

The tour started at 8am, and we were taken in groups around the store and given detailed introductions to each collection by different staff members. Zara's concept is to keep each collection in its own section of the store, like a mini boutique where you can pair and mix individual items and access the coordinating shoes and bags.

Surprisingly, Zara's prices are not unreasonable. Shoes retail for around $60-90, a large selection of jeans for $60, coloured knits for $30 as well as some higher price points for limited edition items and finer materials. Not only was I impressed by the range of colour, cut and style for women, but the men's collection is very well thought out with plenty of pieces to mix and match. (If I'm lucky, I'll drag Pete along to buy him some slim fit shirts!) There's also a very cute and age appropriate kids collection and TRF, a collection aimed at fashion-forward youth.


Adelaide's Zara store is the largest in Australia, housed over two levels and occupying 2,300sq m and is modeled on the Fifth Avenue, New York design. It's a lovely store, very open, clean and relaxing. I think Zara will do very well at Burnside, as the style of the store and merchandise is in line with the mix of middle range and high end retailers in the shopping centre. 

My lookbook usb

Leather tote!

*Note: Sadly, at the start of the tour I realised my camera battery was completely dead (though it appeared full the night before). I have no photos of my own from the tour, but can show you pics from the Zara lookbook.

Topshop in Oz

UK fast fashion brand Topshop are coming to Australia, with plans to open two standalone stores in Sydney and Melbourne in 2012.

Previously, Topshop were stocked as a brand only in Incu stores in Sydney and Melbourne but now are looking at locations to put the stores in indirect competition with the recently opened Zara stores.

News about Topshop's Australian expansion at Fashionising, incidcate the most likely location for the Melbourne store to be in the Jam Factory complex on Chapel Street. Fashionising reports that Topshop could take over the 2,800 square metres of retail space previously used by Borders before their bankruptcy and closure.

From Fashionising: "While it would be impossible for the whole property to be dedicated to floor and shelf space, at 2,800 square metres the single storey Topshop store would be larger than Zara’s Melbourne store, which totals to 1,700 square metres spread across three levels.

With Australians already the third largest consumers of Topshops goods via their online store, Topshop’s opening in the country is a move certain to cement their position in the market."

It is not yet confirmed whether Topshop will feature collections by Australian designers they way their UK stores have with collections by Kate Moss and style selections by Katie Shillingford, Editor of Dazed & Confused magazine. Margy Osmond, CEO of the Australian National Retailers Association spoke on Kerri-Anne this morning, saying in international locations Topshop have not yet invited local designers to collaborate, but that trend could always change.

"It's not been their model in the past, but there's no reason why it couldn't necessarily happen," Ms Osmond said.

You can view the interview on Kerri-Anne here.