Elevated Australian accessories brand Helen Kaminski opened its reimagined flagship store in Sydney’s iconic Queen Victoria Building (QVB) on August 17, marking the start of a new design era.The new store blends Helen Kaminski’s 40-year heritage with modern design and serves as a blueprint for how the brand will pay homage to its Australian roots as it expands across global markets.Australian architecture and design studio Russell & George worked closely with the brand to create a set of house codes that will be replicated in all new Helen Kaminski bricks-and-mortar retail concepts globally.The business first engaged Russell & George a couple of years ago, when it sought to approach its retail environment from a different point of view.“The result is a global set of retail guidelines for us, rolled out to every region and touch point, to ensure consistency of the brand’s global identity, Helen Kaminski GM Mary Barclay told Inside Retail. “We were confident their end result would challenge our merchandising and highlight our product.”These guidelines provide a toolkit to create the best retail experience, depending on the size of the store and its category needs and mix.The new store design delivers a textural and sensory experience for customers, including a heritage wall representing the brand’s signature 8mm raffia braid.Going forward, “the hat landscapes, the central fixtures” will form an “interwoven store design thread” in all new concept retail stores and concessions, Barclay said.They represent a floating field of flowers and will allow the customer to explore and engage with the product, she explained.“We work closely to merge immersion into our brand spaces with our teams, and conversely, us into theirs,” Barclay said.Community connectionThis month, Helen Kaminski also participated in the Country to Couture runway at the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair to showcase its forthcoming collection in collaboration with the Aboriginal art centre, Gapuwiyak Culture and Arts (GCA).The collection marks the brand’s second collaboration with First Nations artists, following its partnership with the Bábbarra Women’s Centre on a four-piece collection as part of its spring-summer 2024 offering.As part of that collaboration, facilitated by the Indigenous Fashion Projects, Helen Kaminski designer and product developer Phoebe Hyles and master craftsman of 25 years, Garry Bishop, travelled to remote Arnhem Land to meet, spend time with, and share knowledge with the artists and Indigenous communities.The GCA collection came to fruition in a similar way. Barclay said it “takes our product, which is in raffia, and the weaving that the artists do, which is out of pandanus”.“The end result is really beautiful and fantastic,” she said. Helen Kaminski has a corporate team operating from Sydney and an extensive development team in Sri Lanka where its raffia manufacturing occurs. This was established in response to the increased demand for the product and ,as a result, the need for skilled craftspeople.For Barclay, the highest compliment came from Arlette Martin, visual arts business development manager from the Copyright Agency, who called the GCA capsule “the definition of a collaboration, because of how we have approached it so hands on.The collection will be made available to the public as part of the brand’s spring-summer 2025 collection, landing in-store in January.Global growthHelen Kaminski has 200 points of sale in the US through retail partners, including a mix of online and bricks-and-mortar. It has 50 points of sale across Europe and over 50 in Asia, including DTC stores in Japan and 35 locations in South Korea alone.While there is no specific number in mind for how many stores the brand plans to open, several additional direct-to-consumer bricks-and-mortar stores are on the horizon in Australia. They will complement the brand’s retail network, which consists of David Jones and smaller premium boutiques.“I’m a big believer in not creating cannibalisation across retail and wholesale,” Barclay said, emphasising that there is a strong benefit to both having a presence.The brand recently launched in China and will continue to expand further into Shanghai, as well as having a strong emphasis on growth in the US market, with a store set to open in Hawaii next year.“There are so many different ways to speak to the customer and where the consumer shops, and at the end of the day, consumers are savvy,” Barclay said.“It’s not about how many locations you can be in, it’s about how and what you’re doing in the spaces you are in, ensuring that every thread has a direct connection to the brand and how you want to be considered and perceived.”