Anson Smart

Photographer

The Strand Arcade has housed Sydney's most considered retail since 1892. Its upper gallery, with ornate ironwork balustrades and polished timber floors, carries a sense of ceremony. It is an appropriate address for SIR.'s sixth Australian store and its third in Sydney.

The brief called for intimacy over grandeur. Drawn by the concept of the solar: the private upper-storey chamber found in English and French medieval manor houses, reserved for the household's closest circle. Smaller than the great hall, more finely appointed, and deliberately withdrawn from the activity below. That quality of earned privacy became the design's organising principle.

At 23 square metres with 4.5 metre ceilings, the space is taller than it is wide. Every decision was made to ground you and to pull the eye down. It builds warmth from the floor upward. The palette is monochromatic, drawn directly from The Strand's own ornamental browns, deep reds, and aged silvers, but reads as layered rather than flat through textural shift across ribbed tile, concrete flooring, smoked glass, and silver detailing.

The result feels accumulated rather than resolved. Vintage furniture and objects carry signs of life that no new piece can replicate. Fur-lined walls are made from the fabric of a SIR. supplier, ceramics are selected from local artists, the leather-wrapped hangers are made from garment off-cuts. These curated quirks reveal themselves gradually, rewarding exploration with something unexpected. The store is new, but it doesn’t read that way.

SIR. The Strand — Sydney, Australia — 2026

An intimate concept store occupying the upper level of Sydney's historic Strand Arcade.

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