Rag Trader Magazine: Store Concept

Best foot forward

RAGTRADER REGULARLY PROFILES NEW CONCEPT STORES IN THE DOMESTIC MARKET. THIS EDITION, ASSIA BENMEDJDOUB DISCOVERS HOW VEIN WEAR IS PUTTING THE MUSCLE BACK INTO FOOTWEAR.

BRISBANE-BASED VEIN WEAR specialises in hand-produced footwear; enlisting workers at its production workshop in Taipei to create just 10 to 100 pairs of a single style each year. Founder Chris McCallum wanted to reflect this "raw and textural" approach to manufacturing in the brand's second Queensland store, located in the Brisbane Arcade.

Built by Verve Construction, the design of the 40sqm store is a collaborative venture between local artist Chris Worfold and McCallum. Women's shoes, branded Kitty Croquet, sit on blocks arranged on the left hand side of the store, while men's shoes sit on blocks or wooden shoe moulds against a Western Red Cedar wall on the right. The most eye-catching elememt is the chandeliers crafted from white-lacquered tree trunks, a theme which has been carried over to the window display which features a large white-lacquered tree trunk on a wooden box.

"The women's shoes are arranged around and on the tree trunk, while the men's shoes are on wooden stakes which are slotted into purpose-built circular holes in the box," McCallum says. "There is an electricity switch under the box, so the front window is never limited as to what it can achieve visually. At this stage, the plan is to change this front window display seasonally." 

Key colours used in the interior design include white, maroon, brown,grey and red offset with wooden, leather and velvet textures. A floor-to-ceiling mirror with an antique tarnished gold frame adds to the store's rustic theme, along with recycled house doors (knobs still attached) which have been fitted with blocks to carry the women's product offer. The retail counter has been crafted from an old barn door found on Worfold's rural property; his original paintings, including a floor-to-ceiling black and white fashion illustration, also featured throughout the store.

"As per our Fortitude Valley store, the new boutique also features two maroon Chesterfield couches," McCallum says. "The idea was to create something that was still recognisably Vein - with the same basic layout and leather seating as our first store - but make this one feel more raw and textural and bring some of the outdoors in. The reason for this was to give it warmth and differentiate it from the minimal, slick, monochrome shoe stores you typically find around Brisbane city."