In one of our juiciest briefs to date, Studio Alto was engaged by property managers Knight Frank to re-brand Madame Brussels Lane – a retail precinct that derives its name from a notorious Melburnian, multiple brothel owner and local resident, Madame Brussels – in order to create a ‘sense-of-place’ in the modern laneway, imbued with the mythology, character and personality of Mme B.
After immersing ourselves in the history of ‘Marvelous Melbourne’, the successful concept was triggered by a press excerpt at the height of Mme B.s’ infamy in 1889. Conservative moral crusaders claimed that she had been “parading in Collins Street in charge of a beautiful girl under 20 with a white feather in her hat, indicating that her maiden virtue was to be had for a price ‘in her gilded den’.” The solution achieved an elegant mark that adds to the mythology surrounding the namesake of the laneway.
