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After experiencing “insane” growth from its e-commerce operation in the past five years, Hobart-based designer-jewellery label Francesca has opened its third retail outlet – choosing a “high street” location at Armadale in Melbourne’s inner east to test the brand's resilience outside of major shopping centres.
The new store, at 1162 High Street, is the first new shopfront location for Francesca since 2016 when founders Hannah and Rachel Vasicek established a pop-up store at Melbourne Central in the CBD. That was three years after opening their first store in Hobart.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Hannah Vasicek tells Business News Australia, conceding that she was initially advised against a strip retail location.
“Our current two stores in Melbourne Central and Hobart are in centres, so this is our first high street-type boutique,” she says.
“The easy thing for a brand to do is place themselves in centres where there’s guaranteed foot traffic, and it was definitely a consideration and something we will be doing going forward.”
But there’s more to the strategy than foot traffic for the sisters who founded Francesca in 2011, selling their “on-trend” hand-made jewellery at Hobart’s Salamanca Markets.
“It was mostly so we could secure our footprint as an Australian brand because I see High Street Armadale as the strip of Australian brands,” says Vasicek, who alongside her sister was a finalist in the 2025 Australian Young Entrepreneur Awards.
“Hommey is right next door to us, and they have been up and comers in the home merch space.”
Also nearby are clothing brands Viktoria & Woods, Dissh and Rodeo Show, as well as accessories brand Status Anxiety.
“I feel like every Australian brand that lives and breathes their proud Australian roots is open there,” says Vasicek.
Francesca also sees Armadale as an opportunity to build a community of customers, which has supported significant growth for its Hobart store.
“Our Hobart store has a huge customer base,” says Vasicek.
“We love being able to create a community and that’s what we are hoping to do at Armadale.
“With our Melbourne Central store we found there are a lot of transient interstate visitors, so it’s been really hard for us to nurture the repeat clients.
“That’s our focus for High Street and a bit of a test case to see if we can really build community and focus on repeat customers.”
While it has taken nine years for Francesca to open its third store, Vasicek says it wasn’t by design.
The original Melbourne Central pop-up became a permanent location with Francesca undertaking a refit in 2019, just before COVID hit. The pandemic later saw online sales for the brand explode.
“Ever since COVID we have had insane e-commerce growth, so we have had to focus on making sure our infrastructure was set including inventory control and everything that entailed,” says Vasicek.
But, even then, the founders were looking for a third location, with the Armadale outlet two years in the making amid a very competitive retail leasing market.
“We also wanted to have a base outside of the CBD in Melbourne for events,” says Vasicek.
“We paid a fortune for the fit-out, but we wanted to make it feel quite classy and high street, whilst being an attainable brand as well.”
Francesca – a name that pays homage to the Vasicek sisters’ mother who originally wanted to name Hannah “Francesca” - sits in the mid-market for jewellery but has built a loyal consumer base.
The Armadale location is also testing the waters for future store openings, with Francesca eying Sydney for a potential fourth outlet.
“We would love to open in Sydney next where we will be confronted with options such as a strip shop in Oxford Street or a centre,” says Vasicek.
“This is a bit of a test case to see if we can prove that (high street) model. We are definitely going to be more of a destination being in a strip shop than an incidental find.”
The early signs for Armadale are promising.
“It’s been getting bigger and bigger each day but obviously we are also getting close to Christmas,” says Vasicek.
“I think it will be quite seasonal – weekend trade is much better, about double the weekdays.
“But in saying that, the weekday buyer will take their time and the order value is huge because they’ve had that one-on-one service.
“I’m excited that our staff will have the time to educate the customers in our brand story because that is definitely one of the reasons our customers come back to shop in store and local as opposed to anywhere else.”
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