Jo Horgan takes us inside Mecca’s dazzling new three-storey beauty destination
Beauty heaven on Earth.
Above: Mecca's flagship store in Sydney. Image credit: Felix Forest
On Friday November 27, 2020, Mecca Brands will open its biggest, most ambitious and most beauty-ful store to date in Sydney’s iconic Gowings building right in the beating retail heart of the city.
To call it a ‘store’ feels like a disservice to the eye-wateringly incredible beauty destination Mecca has created. If Willy Wonka had gone into beauty instead of chocolate, this may very well be what it would be like—there’s so much to see, touch, try and do—it’s basically beauty heaven on Earth.
Mecca’s new flagship is over three sprawling floors and boasts 1,800 square metres dedicated to beauty. But, it’s not beauty in the traditional sense of a line of products sitting on a shelf, it’s Mecca’s brand of beauty—one which puts the customer experience first, pushes the boundaries of what to expect from a bricks and mortar beauty store, and focuses on “demystifying” beauty as Mecca’s founder, Jo Horgan told Vogue during a sneak peek of the new Mecca flagship.
“Yes, you could ask, ‘Is it sensible to launch a flagship 20 times the size of our first store during a pandemic?’ And, yes, I do have a couple of mantras at the moment, and one of them is: build it, and they shall come.
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Within the hallowed beauty walls of Mecca’s store, beauty lovers will find their favourite skincare and make-up products, but they’ll also find so much more. For instance, you can have a blow dry at the EdwardsAndCo in-store hair salon; book a naturopathy session with resident naturopath, Anthia Koullouros; discreetly refresh with injectables administered by Dr Van Park in one of the Services Suites; get your brows laminated at the Brow Bar; sip champagne with friends in the event space while having your make-up and hair done; or add a new piercing courtesy of the dedicated Sarah & Sebastian piercing studio. There’s even a Mecca concierge on hand to help with any and all questions and bookings.