28 September 2009
Visual Merchandising students dress iconic Australian brand
The “white room” is inspired by pop-up books. By Marian Leong, Erin Piercy, Jennifer Naylor and Vivienne Knibbe
The “summer tea party” captures the carefree nature of children in a playful setting. By Vicki Tsitos, Samantha Savage, Emily De Brincat and Erin Harrington
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RMIT University’s Visual Merchandising students have transformed the windows at Country Road’s flagship store in South Yarra.
For this project the students had to design, manufacture and install the window dressing for the iconic Australian brand.
The brief was to capture the facets of the Country Road brand – women’s wear, men’s wear, children’s wear, accessories and homewares – while taking inspiration from seasonal themes and maintaining the Country Road brand identity.
Justin Compton, Visual Merchandising teacher in the School of Design TAFE, was responsible for organising the project along with John Rogers, Heilam Choy and Mark Tigani from Country Road.
“This collaboration is now in its third year. It provides our final year students with an experience to engage with industry,” Mr Compton said.
“The students are able to use the skills they had learned in the program, then apply them to a real job in the industry.
“It’s also a terrific opportunity for the students to work with one of the leading lifestyle brands in Australia and some key people in the industry.
“The students were encouraged to push the boundaries in all aspects of visual merchandising and it provided them with great industry experience.”
Student Marian Leong said: “The Country Road team were very supportive and gave me a great insight into the art that goes into window dressing.
“This project has definitely prepared me for industry and provided great experience for the future.”
Another student, Laura Bellina, said: “It was great to work on a project where you were involved in it from start to finish and where you were able to see each aspect of the window progress.”
Mr Compton hopes to continue this partnership with Country Road. “Country Road are very enthusiastic and proud to support new talent in visual merchandising and we were just so pleased with the work the students did.”
The window display was launched on 16 September and runs until 13 October at Country Road’s South Yarra store on the corner of Toorak Road and Chapel Street.
