Storepro picks and parrys old style Fitzroy shop

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This was published 5 years ago

Storepro picks and parrys old style Fitzroy shop

By Stephen Crafti

Old-fashioned style barbershops aren’t new to the retail scene.

Chris Pickings, who started Pickings & Parry over five years ago in Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, combined the 1930s barbershop with utilitarian high quality work wear in this part of town.

Keen to expand into women’s wear, Pickings has just opened his new venture, Pickings & Parry alongside the women’s label Heffernan & Haire.

Heffernan & Haire's new Melbourne store.

Heffernan & Haire's new Melbourne store.

This time the combined stores, at 166 Gertrude Street, are considerably larger, approximately 150 square metres, and can be found below recently completed apartments by JCB Architects.

“Expanding into women’s clothing was always on my mind, but our previous store wasn’t large enough,” says Pickings, who sources his wares from Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Scandinavia.

“I’m interested in stocking labels that have a story, and as importantly, a history,” says Pickings, removing a Merz B. Schwanen undergarment from one of the timber shelves, a company founded over 100 years ago.

Pickings was tempted to reflect the history of the merchandise in this new store, thinking he could ‘cobble together’ a few old timber display counters that helped shaped the former store’s identity.

However, inheriting an empty shell, with concrete floors and exposed mechanical ducts and services across the ceiling, suggested that help was required.

One of Pickings’ regulars is Rob Neville, designer and construction manager for Storepro, who has been a loyal customer since Pickings put out his first shingle.

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Neville not only connects to the high-quality street wear products on offer, but also, being a resident of Fitzroy, the local culture. Neville’s brief was to retain the feel of the old store but move the retail experience into a slightly more premium bracket.

“I’m familiar with the local scene and could sense what this place needed,” says Neville, who with Pickings has an appreciation of early 20th century fixtures and fittings, extending through to the 1940s and ’50s.

Neville used a number of Pickings’ retro store fittings, including nickel-edged display cases from the 1940s, along with old timber shelves and drawers once used to store maps.

However, along with the past finds, there’s new timber built-in joinery, banquette seating for clients to wait before they get sides clipped and even a bar for those wanting a gin or a coffee (on the house) while perusing the clothing racks.

There are also stacks of magazines from London, including Men’s File, with features on a number of clothing brands stocked in the Gertrude Street store.

“We wanted to create a sense of authenticity,” says Pickings, pointing out two of the new old-fashioned barber’s chairs sourced from the Gold Coast and newly recovered in leather.

Combining men’s and women’s clothing under the one roof can backfire, with both wanting separate spaces and requiring a slightly different approach.

Although well connected, the women’s section, Heffernan & Hare, is slightly softer in ambience, including pastel-coloured change rooms and a greater use of timber to add warmth.

In subtle contrast, Pickings & Parry includes more industrial finishes, such as steel.

Common to both are the unusual webbed ceiling panels, hovering below the blacked out ceilings.

All made from vintage fire hoses, including a number of which were sourced from the former Royal Children’s Hospital (circa 1963), these unusual panels are bound within recycled timber frames from the Lyric Theatre in Fitzroy, now no longer standing.

Pickings figured out that he needed to find 1,600 lineal metres of hoses to make the panels he was looking for, calling on friends to help out on weekends.

“We ended up with 1,000 metres, enough to create the effect I was after.

They add a point of difference to the space, but also provide acoustic control,” says Pickings, referring to the sound of traffic on the polished concrete floors.

Although this new store is loosely divided into three areas (men’s women’s and the barbers), it will evolve in the months ahead to include accessories and homewares.

“People who appreciate well-made clothing will respond in the same way to the new lines of homewares,” says Pickings.

“But its also about creating the experience in ‘bricks and mortar’,” he adds.

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