Welcome To Our New Concept Store In Paddington

This month OROTON opens its first concept store in Paddington, Sydney. The new space serves as the design team’s living moodboard: an intimate boutique combining fashion with art and community – and a little insight into the brand’s behind-the-scenes creative energy

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SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA (AUGUST 2022) — Sometimes you find inspiration, sometimes the inspiration finds you: that’s the thinking behind OROTON’s new boutique opening located in Paddington, Sydney.

Company Chief Executive Officer, Jenny Child, said: “It was our ultimate goal to create a concept that feels special and innovative, an intimate space to celebrate collaborations, bring new awareness to the brand and invite the community in for hosted events. More than ever, we’re focused on that need to recharge, to take time out and feel inspired, and it is our hope that OROTON resonates with all those cultural ideas of how you would spend a Saturday afternoon, doing something you really enjoy, like gallery hopping. It was the idea that shopping should be a sensory experience – emotive and exciting. Most of all, new.”

Certainly, the mood feels less like a runway here and more of an immersive experience. There is a sense of conviviality and community in the Paddington space. New season clothing and accessories are on display, of course, but then there are glass cabinets filled with collectibles, coffee table books to flick through, ceramic plates, and sculptures — all tokens that helped the Creative Director, Sophie Holt, and her design team to arrive at the season’s inspiration.

Child explained, “You could almost say it is Sophie’s life mission, to inspire people by creating that authentic expression via good design, so that people integrate those ideas into their wardrobes. This space is all about helping bring those stories to life and elaborating on the craftsmanship that goes into the collections, a space for our storytelling to live and breathe, and it will be constantly evolving which is exciting.”

Indeed, Sophie Holt has been thinking about how fashion can lift the spirit. Her message: we don’t need another white shirt just for the sake of it, but rather we need an idea, a boutique built around art and design, a store that expresses something of the skill and craft that touched a garment, the imagination that created it and, most importantly, the mindfulness that went into it.

“We wanted the space to feel more like a home,” explained Holt. “There’s a foyer, which will form more of a creative statement, there’s also a space for book clubs and dinners, a little kitchen where customers can sit up on stools and have a drink, and then there’s the salon with a raspberry pink sofa, it’s this beautiful, serene space where we can pull the curtains back to host styling events, something special.” Even the paintings on display are by OROTON’s own merchandiser, Alexandria Park.

“One of the things I love most about the OROTON brand is this combination of beauty and utility, of charm and functionality, and this store encompasses that,” Holt said. “Homeliness is not the right word, but there’s a sense of welcoming to the space, it’s like a discovery, which I love – I've always thought, imagine if you could see a little painting on the wall in a store and it was actually for sale. It’s all about creating the whole aesthetic – the bag, the clothes, the books, the little stool that you want. It’s a way for us to connect on another level with our customers.”