Just over a month since opening the world's biggest freestanding beauty store, MECCA isn't slowing down. The beauty retail giant has today announced its next initiative – introducing, The MECCA Archive.
The MECCA Archive is a new living and evolving record of beauty’s culture – one that preserves overlooked voices, elevates women’s stories, and reframes beauty as a powerful form of storytelling that connects us across time.
It’s estimated that less than 1% of recorded history is about women. At a time when cultural records are vanishing, algorithms erase yesterday’s stories, and no country in the world has yet achieved gender equality, women’s voices risk being lost.
And yet, from rituals to revolutions, beauty has carried women’s stories forward across centuries – from the ochre worn by First Nations women, Cleopatra’s kohl-lined eyes, the powdered faces and red lips of the Victorians, the smoky eyes of the flappers, to today’s radiant glow.
The MECCA Archive, the company's most ambitious purpose-led initiative to date, is building on M-POWER’s $25 million commitment to support a global network of partners working towards gender equality.
"Beauty holds memory. Through beauty, we can map the history of womankind – of creativity and conformity, of limitations and liberation," said MECCA founder and co-CEO, Jo Horgan.
"Yet so much of this history is undocumented, passed from girl to girl or lost to time. We hope the Archive helps change that."
The MECCA Archive will live online at mecca.com/archive and will also be rolled out through immersive in-store installations and digital storytelling.
Customers can engage with beauty as culture, not just product via:
- Exclusive contributions from cultural voices like Jennifer Aniston, Anna Funder, Elaine George, and Isamaya Ffrench helping to shape this living record.
- Trace beauty’s evolution in Australia and New Zealand over the past 200 years through the History of Beauty.
- Go behind-the-scenes of MECCA’s 27-year journey.
- Contribute their own stories, images and reflections to the 2025 chapter: 21st Century Girl and help MECCA fill in the missing gaps in history through submissions to the History of Beauty timeline.
There are also six collectable Time Capsule Sets available to shop now. The edits start from $90, and are housed in limited-edition tins.
"This is about bringing our purpose to the centre of everything we do – not just through special projects, but in the everyday MECCA experience," added Horgan.
"The Archive and campaign invite a bigger conversation: beauty not just as something we buy, but as something we create, share, and pass on."
"Our dream is that decades from now, a girl opens the MECCA Archive and sees herself in it – what mattered to us, what we created, and what we changed together."
"Beauty is part of our culture and history, just as much as art, music, or literature – and it belongs to all of us."
The month-long launch will culminate on International Day of the Girl 2025 in October, when MECCA will announce a series of long-term commitments designed to accelerate progress towards gender equality.
You can learn more about The MECCA Archive and shop the edits here.
Image credit: MECCA
