Culture Kings in stoush with Melbourne City Council over signage and cladding on new store
In the latest drama to hit Culture Kings, the popular streetwear chain has been ordered to tear down the massive logo on its flagship city store. This is why.
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Culture Kings has been ordered to tear down the massive logo on its flagship city store in the latest drama to hit the popular streetwear chain.
Melbourne City Council has ordered the “world famous” store to remove the “excessive” and “imposing” 3m logo by February 1, after a stoush over signage and the shop’s swish black exterior.
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VCAT documents show the Russell St store’s facade is covered in “illegal” black cladding, which was installed without planning permission.
Signs — one each above the Russell St and Hosier Lane entrances and two in the windows — were also erected before being approved.
VCAT last month ruled that the Hosier Lane and window signs be given retrospective approval but that the Russell St logo was “excessive” and “imposing”.
Council planning portfolio chair Nicholas Reece said the firm had “flouted the rules”.
“People want to walk down the famous bluestone Hosier Lane and admire the street art that has made the Melbourne urban art scene famous around the world,” he said.
“They do not want to be bombarded with illuminated commercial advertising that is over the top and out of place.
“International visitor numbers to Hosier Lane rival some of Melbourne’s most popular tourist attractions.
“We want to protect what makes the precinct so special.”
After VCAT ruled that the store’s black cladding was “jarring and distracting”, Culture Kings applied to replace it with a grey concrete render.
Culture Kings threw a massive bash in December 2017, with an appearance by hip-hop star French Montana, when it relocated from the old Fletcher Jones store on the corner of Flinders and Queen streets to the previous home of the Melbourne Theatre Company in Russell St.
But the relocation sparked a petition to stop the chain from relocating and “commercialising” Melbourne’s most famed street art laneway.
The store again hit hot water last year when it was forced to apologise after staff called the police to report a street artist spray-painting in the laneway.
Culture Kings did not respond to the Herald Sun’s calls or emails.
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