Elevated Australian accessories brand Helen Kaminski is marking the start of a new design era with the opening of its reimagined flagship store in Sydney’s iconic Queen Victoria Building (QVB) on August 17.The new store design emphasises the brand’s commitment to craftsmanship, sustainable practices and national retail expansion.This month, Helen Kaminski participated in the Country to Couture runway at the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair where it showcased its forthcoming collection in collaboration with Gapuwiyak Culture and Arts (GCA).The collection will be made available to the public as part of the brand’s spring summer 2025 collection, landing in-store in January.The brand’s new retail concept 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 continues to expand across global markets.Building togetherThe new store marks a shift from the ‘white box’ design of the previous store that Helen Kaminski had on level one of the QVB for the past seven years and celebrates the new brand vision that is biophilic in design.Helen Kaminski has taken up a temporary residence on the ground floor of the QVB for the past six weeks, which Barclay said has exposed the brand to more customers.Australian architecture and design studio Russel & George worked closely with the brand to create a set of house codes that outline the contemporary Australian design, modern colour and bespoke finishes that will be consistently replicated in all new Helen Kaminski bricks-and-mortar retail concepts globally.The business first engaged Russel & 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, Mary Barclay, Helen Kaminski GM, told Inside Retail.“We were confident their end result would challenge our merchandising and highlight our product,” she added.These guidelines provide a toolkit of parts that, depending on the size of the store and its category needs and mix, create the best retail experience.The new store design delivers a textural and sensory experience for customers. For example, the “heritage wall” is an abstract hat mould’s texture of the brand’s signature eight-millimetre raffia braid.Throughout the brand’s new concept retail stores and concessions, a consistent “interwoven store design thread is the hat landscapes, the central fixtures,” Barclay said.They reflect a floating field of flowers and 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.She explained the brand’s approach to biophilic design as having highly detailed, warm and carefully considered design elements, that welcome the consumer with warmth and showcase the brand’s artisanal heritage intertwined with contemporary elements.Community connectionIn support of reconciliation, and as part of its ongoing commitment to artisanal craftsmanship, Helen Kaminski recently partnered with the Bábbarra Women’s Centre on a unique collaboration, facilitated by Indigenous Fashion Projects (IFP).The four-piece collaboration launched as part of the brand’s spring summer 2024 offering and champions Indigenous Australian artists to the world.As part of the collaboration, 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, and share knowledge with the artists and Indigenous communities.Helen Kaminski has a corporate team operating from Sydney and an extensive development team in Sri Lanka where its raffia manufacturing takes place. This was established in response to the increased demand for the product, and as a result, the need for skilled craftspeople.Helen Kaminski’s second collaboration with an Aboriginal art centre, its upcoming collection with the GCA, came to fruition in a similar way to its initial partnership with the Bábbarra Women’s Centre.The GCA is a remote Art Centre in East Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia.The collection “takes our product, which is in raffia, and the weaving that that the artists do, which is out of pandanus,” Barclay explained. “There’s so many similarities and how the artists work with it – the end result is really beautiful and fantastic.” 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”.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.Whist 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 significant presence.The brand recently launched in China and will continue to expand further into Shanghai, with a strong emphasis on growth in the US market, with a store set to open in Hawaii in 2025.“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,” she added.“Ensuring that every thread has a direct connection to the brand and how you want to be considered and perceived.”