Melbourne homewares retailer TheSuperCool has been named a global honouree at the Global Innovation Awards (gia), held last Sunday night at the Radisson Blu Aqua in Chicago.
TheSuperCool – which entails two permanent shops and a series of pop up shops as well as an online store – made quite an impression on the judges with its unique concept, especially since it has only been around since 2011.
“It was pretty phenomenal to represent Australia but then to have won as an honouree globally from about 23 entries including two of our personal favourites – Merci from France and Denmark’s Lerche – we look at what they do and aspire to be like them so we can’t quite believe that we are on the same playing field,” says Kate VanderMeer, who runs TheSuperCool with her husband David Nunez.
gia was created in 1999, with the objective of fostering innovation and excellence in homewares retailing throughout the world. It is structured on a two-tier level, national and global, evaluating retailers within categories such as store design and layout, and visual merchandising, displays and window displays.
“We were very excited when we heard about the actual points of considerations to be involved because they are all the things that we feel we strive toward, and I think it’s fantastic that there is an award that is so specific about those points. There are very few awards that get into the nitty gritty of what it is to be a great retail experience,” adds Vandermeer.
“Winning the award gives us – on a personal level – a lot of confidence and it has confirmed that what we are doing is right and relevant on a global stage. On an exterior level it provides us the opportunity to go to the marketplace and say hey, we are a global award winner and it will give us more clout with our suppliers. It will push us to now think about other international awards we can compete in, and also really push what we have done in the past and keep on moving forward.”
TheSuperCool has big plans for the future including a new flagship store in Fitzroy, which will open in April.
“There will be a multi-purpose space inside the shop where we can invite other smaller independent designers to be involved, not just homewares, we want to mix it up and offer more different retail experiences. We are also looking to develop more products of our own in collaboration with some of the brands we already stock, create some more product exclusivity. And we want to have more of a presence in Sydney.”
Other global honourees include K & Ö HOME (Austria), Merci (France), Galleria Fiaba (Italy), Kookwinkel Bianca Bonte (the Netherlands) and Lakeland (UK). In addition, the Martin M. Pegler Award for Excellence in Visual Merchandising was awarded to LERCHE design of Denmark.
