BRENT WILSON
Interior Design
Location: Sydney, New South Wales
Build: Boutique Concepts
Photography: Timothy Kaye
Published in: Indesign Live, The Local Project, The Local Project Edition 11
Awards: Australian Interior Design Awards, INDE Awards, IDEA Awards, Design Anthology Awards 2023 (Finalist)
Brent Wilson’s expansion into Sydney’s Strand Arcade called for a retail environment that expressed the brand’s craft and presence with restraint. The brief was precise: luxury, sophistication, masculinity and timelessness. The tenancy, a heritage shell with expansive windows overlooking Pitt Street Mall and late-nineteenth-century façades, offered an immediate cue. The room held the energy of an industrial workshop, which became the conceptual anchor for a modern atelier.
Research into New York’s Garment District informed the spatial language, acknowledging the evolution of those converted workrooms and the community of European tailors who shaped them. In dialogue with this, references to Savile Row grounded the project in the traditions of bespoke menswear. The result is contemporary in attitude while carrying a measured reverence for history.
Planning privileges the rituals of made-to-measure. Entry is calm and composed, with sightlines that frame garments and tools of the trade. Tailored joinery provides architectural weight and quiet display. Fitting rooms are designed as private salons, finished to support the precision of the craft. Lighting favours glow over glare, with concealed illumination that settles on texture and cloth rather than overpowering it.
The material palette draws directly from the language of tailoring. Charcoal velvet, silver wool and white linen establish a tactile field, paired with walnut for warmth and presence. Leather-finished Black Caviar marble adds a subtle, tongue-in-cheek nod to luxury without spectacle. The neutrals act as a disciplined backdrop, allowing seasonal colour and fabric stories to read with intent.
The completed store operates as a working atelier rather than a stage set. It is rigorous, masculine and quietly elevated, built to age well and to serve the brand’s evolving collections. Since opening the new space, the brand has reported strong growth in sales, items per transaction and average transaction value, underscoring the commercial impact of considered interior design in the retail environment.