What it means to secure a shop front on Armadales’s coveted High Street
Armadale’s High Street has become one of the most expensive shopping destinations in Melbourne and the row of retailers is essentially a who’s who of Australian fashion.
A walk down High Street is a tour of Australia’s most successful fashion brands – including renowned exports Zimmermann, Dion Lee, Silk Laundry, Venroy and Aje as well as national favourites Bassike, Camilla and Marc, Viktoria & Woods and Oroton.
All the connotations that come with high street shopping carry through to Armadale’s High Street with its pedestrian walkways lined with shops.
It is one of the most sought-after retail precincts for fashion brands in the country and the road to securing one of its storefronts has become part myth, part legend.
However, High Street is not an overnight attraction, it is a small shopping strip that has organically grown into an enviable retail community over decades.
Directions to High Street
Rumours of a waitlist to acquire keys to a store on High Street, as well as the elusive criteria that brands have to meet to make the cut, have long swirled in the industry.
Inside Retail asked Peter Frankel, president of the High Street Armadale Business Association, about the alleged gatekeeping.
“It’s true in the sense that there is more demand than supply,” he admitted, “but nobody would actually rent premises in the street if they do become available if they haven’t got a product that actually suits the image and the market. It’s in a way self-governing, I’d call it.”
The aforementioned criteria for prospective retailers is more descriptive than prescriptive – brands that are drawn to High Street in Armadale are more often than not premium Australian fashion retailers.
“High Street is not being consumed in a vacuum like Chadstone, Southland or Highpoint. It’s a place where people can enjoy the day,” said Frankel.
“It’s a precinct that caters to a certain demographic, it’s very much a lifestyle street.”
On High Street, retailers are paying for the company as much as the boutique, a trait that is almost unique to this location.
In good company
High Street caters to a lifestyle that complements its premium and luxury fashion labels with boutique grocers, artisan homewares and fine dining.
It is also a destination for brides who are looking for couture, bespoke and high-end gowns, a category that is responsible for bringing in a lot of foot traffic.
Zelman Ainsworth, a national retail specialist in Australia, noted that the retailers on High Street “feed off of each other, not in a competitive way but actually in a synergistic way to create a major force”.
But as much as the convergence of premium Australian fashion brands has helped make High Street what it is today, Ainsworth pointed out that High Street has also contributed to its tenants’ growth and profile.
“It allows them to identify as a premium Australian fashion retailer by standing in the company of some of Australia’s most successful retailers,” he told Inside Retail.
But a shop front on Armadale’s High Street is not merely a status symbol for brands to showcase their success, it is a high-profile shopping precinct that performs and drives profit.
When Inside Retail asked Ainsworth what the ideal High Street tenant would be, he said, “It’s an Australian female fashion retailer that maintains a high level of quality and design and individuality, as opposed to a chain store.”
Despite the shops along Armadale’s High Street being under private ownership, Ainsworth said there seems to be an “understanding amongst landlords that the price and best use retail businesses of this precinct is of a premium Australian fashion retailer and it’s almost exclusively what High Street Armadale is made up of.”.
The retailers that have managed to secure a spot in this coveted fashion hub certainly seem to have received the memo.
“There’s a natural beauty in High Street Armadale, a romance and storytelling that retailers are striving to align with,” concluded Ainsworth.
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