Teale Talbot remembers exactly when she realised Realisation Par, the clothing brand she founded with Alexandra Spencer in 2015, needed a bricks and mortar home. The label, which was only available online or through pop-ups with retailers like Selfridges and Violet Grey in LA, has been worn by Alexa Chung, Hailey Bieber and Emily Ratajkowski, and built a following for its vintage-inspired dresses in flattering cuts.
“When I had my first baby, I saw the business with fresh eyes,” says Talbot from London, where the Melbourne native has lived for eight years. As the brand’s design director, she has a tactile relationship with the pieces, handling and wearing them long before they reach customers. But during her time off, she encountered the finished products as a customer would: online first. Some pieces didn’t appeal to her until she saw them in person.
“I figured that this was what it must be like for the customer,” she tells Broadsheet. “It sounds so silly, but it was as simple as that. I then thought, ‘We need to do retail’.”
In March, Realisation Par opened its first London flagship on Mount Street, just a few doors down from where it held a six-month pop-up last year. Why the same location? “Once you go first class, it's hard to go back to economy,” Talbot quips.
Talbot and Spencer worked with interior designer Sophie Baker, who’s known for her work with Soho House, taking inspiration from the Milan apartment Giorgio Armani moved into in 1982. The light-flooded space is packed with antique furniture and Baker’s custom-made pieces, and brims with touches that nod to the brand. The “R” door handle mirrors the logo; the Lovers tarot card, once part of Realisation Par’s branding, is on the door’s signage; and, if you draw your eye upward, Pierre Frey silk lines the ceiling – a tribute to the fabric that first defined the label.
“We wanted to make it feel really elevated and super inviting,” says Talbot. “It’s a bit of a story into mine and Alex’s personal taste too, which maybe you wouldn’t see online.”
A vintage red telephone reading Call for Martinis serves as a direct hotline to order the cocktail from Scott’s across the road. Once it arrives, there’s a tiger-print-lined film photobooth to memorialise the experience. It’s spawned a multitude of Tiktok videos about the space – a clever bridge between an IRL space and an online-first brand.
That virality has caused on-the-ground issues. “We’ve had to get a security guard because we’ve literally had people changing their clothes and doing their make-up [to make content there],” says Talbot. “It’s wild how viral this store has gone. It’s something we wanted to do, but it’s kind of backfired.”
Eleven years ago, Talbot and Spencer came up with the idea for Realisation Par over a Margarita in Venice. From the start, they wanted to buck the trend of selling via wholesale, and launched their store just as online shopping was taking off. Now, Talbot notes the Mount Street location already sells triple what digital does in a day.
“I think there’s a real change in the atmosphere, and I think online is dying a little bit,” she says. “We started when it was booming, but I think there’s too much noise, and everything is so diluted. When we started Instagram, it was one page and everyone[’s profile] got viewed. People used to wear it [on Instagram] because they love it; now everyone’s getting paid to. People want authenticity. They love the experience of going into a store, and I think that’s a better way to capture customers.”
Realisation Par
95 Mount Street, W1K 2TA
07824782411
Hours:
Mon to Sat 10am–6pm
Sun midday–5pm
