Lisa Gorman on Taking kikki.K Beyond Stationery — and the Brand's New Gertrude Street Flagship
After two decades at her namesake label and a deliberate creative reset, Lisa Gorman is rebuilding the stationery favourite into a lifestyle brand — starting on Gertrude Street.
For 20-odd years, two Melbourne institutions ran on parallel tracks: one taught the city to wear colour, the other taught it to organise its life in Swedish-minimalist style. Now they share a creative brain. Lisa Gorman — founder and longtime creative director of her namesake label — has spent the past two years quietly rebuilding kikki.K from the inside, and the clearest expression of that new era is about to land on Gertrude Street.
The stationery brand's new Fitzroy flagship opens this Saturday, June 13 — its first high street store in more than a decade — and it makes the rebrand physical: notebooks and planners sit alongside a freshly launched apparel range, customisable TREK. bags and a build-your-own system of drink bottles and coffee cups.
For Gorman, the move follows a deliberate pause. "In 2021 I was ready for a creative reset, so took myself out of commercial design to focus on my artwork," she tells Concrete Playground. "By 2023, I was rejuvenated and refreshed and ready to step back into a new commercial venture, and that is kikki.K. The opportunity to view kikki.K's future through a completely new lens was why I joined the brand as Creative Director."
That new lens doesn't mean a clean break. "I'm certainly not forgetting our heritage and foundation in stationery, it's what got us this far and is a staple within the re-brand," she says. "The evolution of the brand into a Lifestyle collection is the future vision for kikki.K."
If you know Gorman's work, you can guess what that evolution looks like: colour, used with intent. "Everything we design here at kikki.K must work well, work often, and look good," she says. "I see colour choice and colour layering as a form of personalisation and identity. I want people to stop and think about their relationship to different colours when they come into kikki.K."
As for the choice of postcode — Gorman has been a Gertrude Street watcher for two decades, and lists her new neighbours like a local drawing you a map: Andrew McConnell's Marion and the Builders Arms, the very first Aesop store, Northside Records and the rest of Fitzroy's enviable shopping strip. "I think Gertrude Street sums up Melbourne in a street, which is why we are now seeing tourists coming for a peek at what's going on," she says.
The boutique itself is "designed first and foremost with consideration to the space and location, using a natural palette with a little bit of colour and a dose of nostalgia, like cork tiles and peg board along with some '70s vintage furniture and lighting pieces".
And there's more coming. "The new TREK. Luggage range lands in August, to join our hard luggage collection," says Gorman. "We've met the needs of the super-light soft carry case for people on the move. And there's a new apparel collection on its way — think jumpsuits, denim, quilted coats and plenty of Carrywear." August also brings new paper goods and a run of collaborations.
kikki.K's flagship opens Saturday, June 13 at 207–209 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy. For more information, visit the kikki.K website.
Images: Michael Pham.
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