More than a department store, Faradays offers a considered world of luxury, discovery and connection.
Faradays signals a new era for luxury retail in New Zealand. Now open on Auckland’s Queen Street, the ambitious new flagship store brings fashion, beauty, fragrance, home, hospitality and culture together within one highly considered destination. International in outlook yet distinctly New Zealand in spirit, Faradays is less about traditional department-store retail and more about creating a world to enter, explore and spend time within, where discovery, exceptional design and personal service shape the experience.
For Together Journal, there is much about the Faradays world that resonates. Weddings today extend far beyond a single day, encompassing engagement celebrations, bridal appointments, rehearsal dinners, welcome parties, honeymoon wardrobes, meaningful gifting and the beginnings of a home together. Faradays speaks naturally to this broader world. Couples can discover fashion for the wedding and its surrounding events, explore gifting and concierge services, or gather with family and friends over a long lunch or intimate bridal celebration at its restaurant by Helen and Josh Emett. It is a destination designed for life’s significant moments, both before and well beyond the wedding day.
Occupying the beautifully restored Milne & Choyce building, the three-level flagship feels closer in spirit to the world’s great retail destinations than anything previously realised in Aotearoa. Its greatest strength lies in the confidence of its curation. International luxury houses, many establishing their first permanent presence in New Zealand, are presented alongside brands making their Australasian debut and many of this country’s most respected designers. Rather than separating global prestige from local creativity, Faradays brings them into conversation, creating a thoughtfully balanced environment where discovery, craftsmanship and exceptional design exist side by side. The result is a retail experience that feels both internationally relevant and distinctly New Zealand.
ABOVE Founders Eddie + Constance
ABOVE Constance, Eddie, Josh and Helen
Hospitality is woven into the DNA of Faradays. At its centre is a restaurant by Helen and Josh Emett, two of New Zealand’s most celebrated names in hospitality. Renowned for creating some of the country’s most acclaimed dining experiences, they bring an instinctive understanding of what transforms a meal into a memorable occasion. Their involvement signals that the restaurant is not simply an addition to the store, but an integral part of the Faradays vision. Together with luxurious spa treatment rooms and a permanent sound bar within the contemporary fashion lounge, the experience extends well beyond retail, creating a destination where customers can enjoy intimate bridal lunches, indulgent pre-wedding and occasion beauty treatments, and even discover the perfect soundtrack for a wedding or special celebration.
The building itself is central to the experience. Reimagined by Fearon Hay Architects, the historic Milne & Choyce building balances its heritage with a contemporary architectural language defined by beautiful natural materials, restrained detailing and generous, light-filled spaces. At its heart sits a spectacular spiral staircase so significant in scale it was craned into the building during construction, now serving as both an architectural centrepiece and a striking symbol of the store’s ambition.
Curious to learn more, we spoke with founders and husband-and-wife team Constance and Edward von Dadelszen about the shared vision behind Faradays, the opportunity they recognised within New Zealand’s retail landscape, and why they believe the future of luxury shopping is centred not simply on what we buy, but on how we experience it.
How important was it to create a destination where people come to spend time, not simply to shop?
It was essential — arguably the whole point of the project. I wanted people to browse without an agenda, run into someone they know, sit down for lunch without ever leaving the building. That’s what the great department stores of the past understood: they were social hubs as much as retail spaces. Lottie’s, our restaurant with Josh and Helen Emett, is central to that — it was designed to be the beating heart of the store, not an afterthought. The same thinking shaped the farmacia, which is built for discovery and browsing rather than a quick transaction. Nostalgia, to me, is the feeling of fondness and wonder tied to a moment that felt special, and we’ve tried to build that sense into every part of Faradays — somewhere you can take a meeting, meet a friend, or simply enjoy a moment of solitude over a great coffee.
Faradays brings together international luxury houses, brands making their New Zealand or Australasian debut, and some of our most celebrated local designers. What philosophy guided that curation?
I’d describe our categories as tightly curated rather than simply wide. Over half of our brands are entirely new to the New Zealand market, so there’s a great deal for people to finally discover or shop here for the first time. But breadth was never the goal in itself — every category has been considered carefully against what people actually want to shop for locally, and what we felt was genuinely missing. I’m particularly proud of what we’ve built in New Zealand beauty and skincare, our children’s brands, and our selection of independent artists. Some brands were a little hesitant to join a department store after recent closures in the sector, but many others reached out to us directly the moment our announcement went out.
Today’s weddings are no longer centred on a single day. Couples are shopping for engagement parties, bridal and groom wardrobes, rehearsal dinners, welcome events, after-parties, honeymoons and life beyond the celebration. How do you see Faradays becoming part of that entire journey?
This is exactly where a store with real breadth comes into its own. A couple could come to Faradays for the engagement look, come back for rehearsal dinner and welcome-event pieces, dress the groom’s party, source gifts for the bridal party, and outfit themselves for the honeymoon — all without leaving the building.
Our personal shopping service is built for precisely this kind of journey, taking the pressure off finding everything alone across multiple floors and instead curating pieces that genuinely suit the client and the occasion.
And because our offering runs from fine jewellery and beauty through to homeware and vintage, we can support the celebration itself as well as the life a couple is building afterwards — not just the one day, but everything around it.
How will your concierge offering help customers curate everything from wedding and occasion wardrobes to gifting, registry and beyond?
Our personal shopping and concierge service exists for clients who are time-poor, or who simply don’t want to navigate multiple floors alone to find exactly what they need. Rather than browsing everything themselves, a stylist listens, selects, and puts together a considered edit — whether that’s occasion wear, gifting, or building out a registry — with real added value at every step, right through to hemming or customisation. For an occasion as layered as a wedding, that kind of guidance matters enormously: there are so many moments to dress and so many people to buy for, and our concierge service is designed to make all of it feel considered rather than overwhelming, with the same level of care whether a client is shopping for themselves or for someone else entirely.
Five years from now, what do you hope people will say about Faradays? Beyond the brands and the building itself, what legacy do you hope this project leaves on New Zealand’s retail, design and hospitality landscape?
I hope people say we built something that lasted — not just commercially, but culturally. Nothing worth doing is ever easy, and this has been an enormously ambitious project, but we’ve had incredible mentors around us who believed in it long before we said it out loud publicly. Beyond the brands and the building, I want Faradays to prove that a New Zealand-owned business can compete at the very top of retail and hospitality, and that Queen Street and the CBD can be genuinely worth the journey again. If in five years people think of Faradays as somewhere they return to again and again — not because they need something, but because they want to be there — then we’ll have done exactly what we set out to do.
Perhaps what feels most refreshing is Faradays’ confidence in the enduring value of physical retail. In an increasingly digital world, it champions something technology cannot replicate: the pleasure of discovery, the warmth of personal service and the inspiration that comes from experiencing beautifully curated products within thoughtfully designed spaces. Much like a beautifully considered magazine, it offers a reason to step away from the screen, slow down and engage with something tangible, curated and designed to be experienced rather than simply scrolled past.
For more information, visit faradays.co.nz and @faradays.store
