If you are a store that is! Let me clarify…..

The spectacular fit out of Kitten D'Amour

I was on a regular expedition to Chermside Shopping centre (I run a fashion boutique, clearly I don’t get enough exposure to clothes in my working life!) and had dragged the boy along for the ride. We were doing the usual walk around when we decided to pop into a fairly new store. You might know it, you might not, it’s the second flagship store of Australia label Kitten D’Amour. This shop was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. I felt like I’d walked into a Katy Perry video clip! From the cotton-candy coloured walls to the black and white checker-board floor, every detail of the store fit out had been carefully considered and matched to represent the brand. The clothes themselves are also amazing, frills and lace and vintage-inspired prints run amuck in the store. The girls in the store as just as delightful too. Cheerful and friendly and (of course) looking amazing in the frocks, but still, the thing that stood out to me (and to the boy I might add) was that the store had personality!

You got a really understanding of what this label and these clothes were all about as soon as you walked in the door. Fun? tick! Flirty? tick? Their brand message was strong, but more importantly, the shop was a FUN place to be!

After spending a good 15 minutes soaking up the atmosphere (and trying a few cheeky things on), we finally dragged ourselves out of the store and across the way to another, much frequented store. I am not going to name this store because I am, in fact, a fan of what they do generally – let’s just say it was ‘just another chain store’. The difference when we walked into this store almost elicited a physical reaction however, after we had just walked out of the wonderfulness of the previous store. ‘Blah’ was the word that came out of both our mouths almost immediately. Bland, boring and same same. This store had zero personality – if this store was a person, they would have been described as ‘beige’, in fact beige is the perfect word for it. The store fit out was beige, the staff were beige (actually they didn’t even say hello) and the clothes were literally beige. It was one of the most underwhelming shopping experiences I’ve had, highlighted by the fact our senses had just gone into overload in the first store.

It really was a shame because I do love the clothes that the said chain store have on offer but I was so uninspired to even look at them because of the whole experience of walking into that store and being underwhelmed. So I guess it shows that is some instances, appearances really do matter! Have you had a beige shopping experience?