MECCA MILESTONES We’re celebrating 25 years of MECCA, and it’s all thanks to you! Join us on a trip down memory lane as we go back – way back – to the beginning, when eyebrows were skinny and ‘The Rachel’ was the height of chic. We’re celebrating 25 years of MECCA, and it’s all thanks to you! Join us on a trip down memory lane as we go back – way back – to the beginning, when eyebrows were skinny and ‘The Rachel’ was the height of chic. 1994-1996 The lightbulb moment An idea is hatched in the living room of Jo Horgan’s home in Melbourne’s Albert Park. Her vision: to trek the global beauty path to discover emerging makeup brands, niche fragrances and cutting-edge skincare and bring them home for Australian women to enjoy. 1997 And so it begins... Mecca Cosmetica opens its first store in Melbourne’s South Yarra with an expert edit of seven iconic global beauty brands. A modest space upstairs serves as office and warehouse. 1997 And disaster strikes… After much frantic searching, Jo Horgan loses the first day’s takings. (She found the $1,873 eighteen months later, in an envelope, in a box, in a cupboard, behind the sink.) 1999 Officeworks The office moves into a converted hat and handbag warehouse. Furniture assembly—think IKEA desks and bookcases—becomes part of the job description and a rite of passage for the five staff members. 2001 Surfing the web meccacosmetica.com.au lands on the worldwide web – now beauty obsessives can shop their favourite beauty anywhere, anytime! 2003 MECCA made Mecca Cosmetica’s own signature line launches with a considered edit of products created by the beauty obsessed for the beauty aficionado. 2005 Introducing KIT New indie sibling Kit Cosmetics opens its doors on Oxford Street in Paddington, bringing with it under-the-radar beauty brands—including its own signature line, eventually expanding into select Myer stores. 2005 Let’s hear it for the boy We welcome MECCA’s first man to the team: Boston Consulting Group partner—and Jo’s husband—Peter Wetenhall. 2005 10-tastic! Malin+Goetz hosts a birthday dinner party for us in their New York boutique and we publish a MECCA-made magazine in collaboration with Doingbird. Our brands—including Bumble and bumble, Comme des Garçons, NARS and Stila—join in the celebrations by creating exclusive limited-edition products in our honour. 2007 Hello NZ! Mecca Cosmetica Ponsonby is our first international store, soon to be followed by three store openings in Wellington, Christchurch and Newmarket over the next two years. 2008 Bonjour MECCA Mecca Cosmetica features in Paris Vogue as the ultimate global beauty destination, alongside Corso Como Milan, Barney’s New York, Liberty of London and LA’s Fred Segal. Beauty pilgrims make their way from around the world. 2010 Calling all beauty junkies MECCA introduces a whole new beauty experience with the launch of Mecca Maxima in Melbourne Central showcasing a glam squad of over 3,000 products from 65 brands including cult favourites such as NARS and Smashbox and international bestsellers such as Bobbi Brown and YSL. 2012 Sharing the love The MECCA Beauty Loop rewards program launches, gifting our much-loved customers with the products they want and the experiences they enjoy. It’s our way of saying ‘thank you’. 2012 Beauty meets fashion MECCA hits the runway in our hometown, signing on as the official makeup partner of Melbourne Spring Fashion Week. 2012 In the spotlight In one of her career highlights, Jo Horgan addresses the international beauty community at the Women’s Wear Daily Beauty Forum and, wearing sky-high stilettos, takes a tumble on stage. (Don’t worry, she was OK. And for the record, she wears flats when performing public speaking duties these days.) 2013 Beauty meets art MECCA begins a beautiful friendship with the National Gallery of Victoria going on to sponsor its summer blockbuster exhibitions over the coming years including Jean Paul Gaultier and Andy Warhol | Ai Wei Wei. 2013 Call the police Six weeks before Christmas, the entire Holiday season shipment of European fragrances and other beauty products is stolen en route to Lyon. Yes, that hurt. 2014 Who’s who Jo Horgan lands on the prestigious WWD Beauty Inc 50 Most Influential People in Global Beauty list, she’s the only Australian to feature. 2014 24/7 beauty Our website relaunches as mecca.com.au, housing over 7,000 products from more than 100 brands. 2014 Flagship #1 Our first beauty-full Mecca Cosmetica flagship store opens on South Yarra’s Toorak Road with three new concepts: a dedicated perfumery, the first dedicated NARS Boutique, and MECCA Trove which shines a light on our favourite new beauty discoveries. 2014 We did it! MECCA Brands makes it on BRW’s Best Places To Work list as one of the top five companies in Australia and the #1 company in Asia. 2015 UD day Mecca Maxima makes waves with the hotly anticipated launch of Urban Decay. Social media goes into overdrive and one Naked Palette sells every 4.86 seconds in the first hour of trade, leading to a total of 3,676 Naked Palettes sold on the day. 2015 Drumroll please ... Jo Horgan is honoured as the winner of the Beauty category at the prestigious InStyle Women of Style Awards and makes WWD Beauty Inc’s 25 Most Innovative Beauty Executives list. 2016 Have you got The Memo? MECCA moves into the world of digital publishing, delivering ‘the inside word on beauty’ with the launch of our very own online editorial hub, The MECCA Memo. 2016 Kia Ora (again) Mecca Maxima joins Mecca Cosmetica in the Land of the Long White Cloud, opening it’s very first New Zealand store in Christchurch’s ANZ Centre. Over 300 eager Beauty Junkies lined up to be the first customers in the store on opening day. 2016 Farewell Kit, hello MECCA MECCA Brands’ newest retail concept arrives with the opening of MECCA in Myer. Replacing the Kit concept, it brings together the best of Cosmetica and Maxima in a world-class space within the department store. 2016 Ready to M-Power We partner with some of Australia’s leading organisations including National Gallery of Victoria, Foundation For Young Australians and Engineers Without Borders for the inaugural MECCA M-Power program. This unique 12-month program is designed to empower extraordinary women and girls to realise their potential. 2017 Move over As our Support Centre team continues to grow, we expand across the road with the addition of a second big and beauty-full two-storey office space. 2017 Capital city The next generation of Maxima stores opens in Canberra, our most immersive space yet with our first ever “Get The Look” station. 2017 Taking it to the MAX Enter MECCA MAX. Mecca Maxima’s own signature line launches with a head-turning array of high-impact pigments and selfie-ready essentials for the #MECCABeautyJunkie in all of us. 2017 20 years young Two decades later! To celebrate our 20th, some of our most-loved brands including Too Faced, Stila, NARS, Smashbox and Frank Body create limited-edition MECCA20 exclusive products. 2018 Make way for MECCALAND! In less than an hour, tickets sell out for Australia’s first-ever beauty festival! MECCALAND explodes onto the scene as a next-level celebration of beauty gurus, world-leading makeup artists, most-wanted brands, life-size lipsticks, limited-edition products, glitter cannons, goodie bags and so much more. 2018 Melbourne Central has a makeover After one too many people confused MECCA MAXIMA Melbourne Central’s white fit-out for a chemist (true story!), we give the store a mega makeover to become the destination for beauty obsessives in the Melbourne CBD. 2019 MECCALAND takes Sydney You ask, we deliver! MECCALAND returns for a second year of never-been-done-before beauty moments, this time just south of the Sydney CBD! Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Uzo, Zoë Foster Blake, Flex Mami and many more join in on the celebrations. 2019 New brands ahoy! Beauty’s newest and most iconic brands join the MECCA lineup, thick and fast! Go-To, Westman Atelier and Morphe are just some of the new arrivals online and in-store – and Kiehl’s makes a celebrated return to MECCA shelves. 2020 And then there was COVID-19… All but one of our 100+ stores close (and open, and then close and open again) as the world stops to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. What doesn’t stop is our mission to make everyone look, feel and be their best, so we pivot (or rather, pirouette), with livestream events, daily Memo updates, Instagram Lives, virtual services and so much more to lift beauty lovers’ spirits while in lockdown. 2020 Time to Chit Chat To help our customers connect with each other and stay on top of all things beauty while our stores are closed, we create MECCA Chit Chat, our official Facebook group – now with 87,500 members and counting! It fast becomes the ultimate destination for round-the-clock beauty talk. 2020 A new beauty wonderland In Sydney’s iconic Gowings building, we open MECCA’s first flagship: an immersive, multilevel beating heart of beauty in Sydney’s CBD. Jo notes the planning, development and opening of the flagship from another state (via Zoom!) as one of her biggest business challenges to date. 2021 Talking the talk MECCA Talks – our official podcast – hits number-one on the Apple Arts and Spotify Fashion & Beauty charts across Australia and New Zealand in its first week of launch! 2021 Beauty in the palm of your hand After 18 months of tweaking and tinkering, the MECCA App lands in the App Store to much success. The best in global beauty is now just a swipe, tap and click away. 2021 Charlotte Tilbury, darling! Much to everyone’s delight (and especially to those who requested we stock the brand daily), the ‘Queen of Glow’s cult-status collection of makeup and skincare landed on our shelves – and promptly flew off them, again and again! 2022 Commission accepted In partnership with the National Gallery of Victoria, we’re championing the creative women changing the design world through the Women in Design Commission. Trailblazing Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao is named as the inaugural commission on International Women’s Day. 2022 Just a click away! Click & Collect becomes available across all MECCA stores in Australia and New Zealand, so customers can shop their beauty favourites online and pick them up in-store, usually within 24 hours! 2022 (Almost) new digs Our Support Centre team more than doubles! We expand into the building next-door, and renovate while we’re at it – filling the new and improved office with vintage and pre-loved furniture, loads of colour (of course!) and the latest in tech. 2022 kit: is back! What was once the Kit store concept (and a line of hand, body and beauty essentials) remerges as kit: the brand, a curation of no-frills skincare, body care and tinctures with a commitment to high-quality, plant-derived ingredients and sustainable practices. 2022 Beauty Loop Level 4 Beauty Loop members show us that their love for beauty has no bounds! To reward our biggest beauty connoisseurs, we introduce Level 4 – complete with five Bonuses each year, four deluxe Boxes and ultra-exclusive access to events and offers. 2022 MECCA celebrates… It’s 25 years on and we’re just getting started! But before we reach even bigger MECCA milestones, it’s time to celebrate our customers (that’s you!), our incredible brands and our all-time favourite products. Hip-hip!
