A rite of passage for many Australians took place on a Thursday evening.
After the final school bell rang, groups of teenagers would make the weekly pilgrimage to their local shopping centre and walk around for hours, gossiping as they browsed through shops that housed treasures they couldn’t yet afford.
“They became a part of everyday life,” says Sophie Holt, Oroton creative director, of the place shopping centres have within the broader context of Australian fashion history.
“For many people, it was the main place where they first saw fashion. Shopping centres made good design accessible to them for the first time and really became part of people’s daily routines.”
Over the past two decades, however, that culture, which inadvertently encouraged creative exploration, dissipated as some shopping centres shortened opening hours and the online shopping boom removed the need to go in-store at all.
The tides, however, appear to be changing once more. A new report released by Urbis and The Shopping Centre Council of Australia notes retail sales grew three per cent over the year to June 2026, with customer foot traffic at shopping centres up by 2 per cent nationally.
“Fashion within shopping centres has changed significantly over the past two decades,” says Elissa Stewart, director at Urbis. “Brands that were once predominantly found within department stores are increasingly establishing their own specialty stores, giving them greater control over their brand and customer experience.”
Internationally, the return to bricks and mortar shopping is being driven by Gen Z. According to research from Circana, 62 per cent of American 18- to 24-year-olds made their general merchandise purchases in physical stores last year. PwC also claimed shopping centre foot traffic among consumers aged 14 to 29 rose by 57 per cent year-on-year.
“There’s a massive rediscovery happening,” Holt says.
“People are craving real places and interactions. Obviously, online is still very important, but at Oroton we’re finding that people are interacting with retail in a very strong way. There’s a new curiosity about the mall.”
The role of shopping centres in facilitating that connection between individuals and fashion will be explored in a new exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum, Parramatta. Opening November 7, The Mall will highlight the Australian brands that have shaped local identity and global consumer culture, such as Oroton and R.M. Williams.
“Together, they represent over 500 years of combined retail, design and manufacturing history, and that’s something that we really wanted to represent within the exhibition,” explains senior curator Keinton Butler.
As part of the exhibition, Oroton collaborated with artist Anna Burns on a bespoke window display that will be showcased within a large-scale 19th-century arcade. Burns is the creative tour de force behind some of the most influential fashion windows in the world, creating displays for luxury houses such as Hermes and Louis Vuitton.
“I’m an old-school retailer and I love our windows,” Holt says, noting it’s this kind of attention to detail that has allowed the storied Australian label to retain relevance and intimacy despite their continued growth.
“We put a lot of thought and energy into our windows, and it reflects our brand. So I was really excited to be part of this bigger picture, cultural opportunity.”
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