Christian Kimber

CLIENT Christian Kimber
PROJECT Commercial
DATE July 2024
LOCATION Melbourne, Australia

Christian Kimber’s third store, located in the heart of Melbourne’s central business district, layers and incorporates the designer’s three key design collections: city, coast, country, into a comprehensive space that stands apart from the felted-greys synonymous with Melbourne’s corporate culture. The site, a generous 160sqm on Lt. Collins St, required significant demolition from the previous tenancy, with Perera reconfiguring the floor plan to maximize and compartmentalize the space into its various purposes.  

Inspired by the tailoring in decades past: Savile Row and the Sartoria of Naples, the Christian Kimber store honors the traditional keepings of a tailor’s premises with an in-house workshop for alterations and customizations, blackboard, chalk and tape in each dressing room for measurements, and a lounge for clients to discuss bespoke pieces. These traditional interventions parlay against the brand’s ready to wear collections and add a theatric, but also necessary level of detail for the client. 

To achieve a cohesive delineation between Kimber’s three collections: city, coast and country, Perera zoned the spaces according to each collection and while not distinguishing them in entirety, gestured to those varying collections throughout the projects’ materiality. The overarching palette is an enveloping warmth from rich walnut timber, soft linen drapery, sisal wrapped around walls and chestnut-brown carpeting. A proverbial ‘nod’ to the brand’s country collection is seen through the chartreuse tones in Wattle rug mounted across a wall like an ancient tapestry, while the coast is exemplified in the glossy pale blue tiling that greets each visitor as they enter the store. Throughout, iconic pieces of furniture from Gemla and Møller, chosen for their representation of the same artisanal qualities of tradition, detail and precision that are exemplified in men’s tailoring.