Absolutely Fabulous
Fashion’s flagship stores are setting new standards in retail design, tempting customers to linger longer and spend more
The uber-cool design aesthetic of fashion’s flagship stores is now widely recognised as an art form in its own right
words: dominic lutyens
AS YOU SASHAY into one of the world’s swankiest boutiques – London’s Dover Street Market, say, or, should you be in Paris, Issey Miyake’s A-Poc store – you may be so mesmerised by their interiors that you won’t stop to analyse why they look so fabulous. But with the design of every flagship store comes a carefully planned aesthetic – a strategy to lure customers, encourage them to linger longer and, yes, part with their cash. Shop interiors are now increasingly dreamt up by stratospherically famous architects – also known as ‘star architects’. And entire tomes are published on the subject.
A very recent one is Absolutely Fabulous! – Architecture and Fashion, by Ruth Hanisch, a paean to shop interiors worldwide, from the innovative and avant-garde to the more classical yet super-glam. It charts the latest trends in shop design and includes an essay on the history of the relationship between architecture and fashion. As Hanisch points out, there is nothing new about the latter: Austrian modernist architect Adolf Loos (1870-1933), for example, designed a gentlemen’s outfitters in Vienna. But today – with the rise and rise of the department store-sized fashion-label flagship (in this field, size really matters) – architecture and fashion have become intimate bedfellows. Fashion houses hire star architects to give the brands gravitas or make them appear avant-garde. Famous pairings of architects and labels to date include John Pawson and Calvin Klein, Claudio Silvestrin and Giorgio Armani and David Chipperfield and Dolce & Gabbana.
A major trend today, says Hanisch, is for increasingly theatrical, Baroque interiors: “Less isn’t more any more. One new credo in shop design is: ‘the more colours, textures, screens, displays, and so on, the merrier.’”
Things weren’t always thus. Remember the ultra-minimalist interiors of the 1990s – unadorned, concrete spaces, in anaemic greys, where clothes were laid out with regimented precision on morgue-like slabs? Of course, some still exist, but these clinical environments are passé. Minimalist spaces are now too clichéd, too commonplace to make an impression. “The years of minimalist shop design – ironically dubbed ‘Boutique Cistercianism’ – are over,” asserts Hanisch.
And, just as domestic interiors have become more eclectic, so shop interiors are now more sumptuously decorated. “A few years ago, domestic interiors were hugely influenced by retail spaces. But today, hip shops look more like cool homes,” says Michelle Ogundehin, editor of Elle Decoration. “Retailers understand that people need to see things in context. Also, we’re all acutely time-poor and we need to be seduced to spend. The easiest way to do this is to create an environment people feel at home in – you’re not just shopping, you’re having fun.”
With each label aspiring to create a flagship store that encapsulates the unique essence of its brand – making the building a powerful branding tool in itself – the shop interiors of the world’s most deluxe labels are bound to look different from each other, too.
And any self-respecting flagship must now offer a string of perks. “No flagship store worthy of that tag can dare do without a bar, lounge, restaurant or chill-out area,” says Hanisch. “Even luxury garages, exhibition spaces and gardens are deployed to maximise the impact of the experience.”
Interestingly, interior designers are being kept on their toes by none other than you and I. If they are constantly upping the ante – creating ever more attention-grabbing spaces – it’s because they need to satisfy the demands of an increasingly exacting public. A recent study has identified that 36 per cent of UK adults are ‘cultural creatives’. That’s an awful lot of visually sophisticated people to please.
Of the stores featured in Hanisch’s book, A-Poc and Jean-Paul Gaultier Haute Couture in particular couldn’t be more different, and so illustrate the trend for brands creating unique, distinctive interiors. A-Poc, designed by hotshot French designers, the brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, is super-hip and ultra-futuristic. Its white interior is offset by funky, paintbox-bright accents of colour. Its key attraction is its ingeniously flexible display system: a series of horizontal rails run along the walls but at ceiling height criss-cross each other so clothes can be hung anywhere. A similarly versatile system exists, too, in the London shop of he maverick, blingtastic label Voyage, where clothes are hung from ceiling-mounted tracks.
By contrast, Jean-Paul Gaultier Haute Couture, designed by Alain Moatti and Henri Rivière, is awesomely Baroque – a paragon of the new vogue for opulence. It’s also a good example of another trend – for buildings with a quirky history. Dating from 1912 and built in the lavishly decorative ‘Third Republic’ style, this former palace has variously housed a boxing ring, nightclub and the HQ of a left-wing philanthropical society called ‘L’Avenir du Prolétariat’. Moatti and Rivière’s lofty mission statement was to create an interior that is a ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ (a Wagnerian term meaning a ‘total art work’ that satisfies all the senses). This rather la-di-da art reference is actually very apt: “These days, boutiques are often fitted like art galleries while items are presented like art objects by way of convincing the consumer that their purchase is a very special one,” says Hanisch.
Although on a less grand scale, new Amsterdam lingerie store Marlies Dekkers has taken the opulent route, too, with its scarlet carpet, jet black or airforce blue walls and plush changing rooms. Much more care is being lavished on changing rooms, incidentally: at the personal shopping department of Selfridges, in London, punters can choose from a whole spectrum of light settings, some even simulating sunlight or daylight. As Hanisch points out, state-of-the-art technology is seen as a vital way to entice customers. In addition to A-Poc’s rails, the author cites such flash gizmos as cameras in changing rooms that give customers a 360-degree view of themselves. Chill-out areas now often come with TVs, lifts boast mini-bars, while internet access provides style junkies with more information on the label in question and on events in the fashion world at large.
Diametrically opposed to this high-octane glamour is another trend – grunge-chic interiors. Take the London emporium Dover Street Market, whose aesthetic – inspired by the city’s legendary, now-defunct Kensington Market – is uncompromisingly post-punk. The changing rooms are housed in Portakabins; a battered shed houses the till. Of course, this studied informality is in fact highly considered and, in its own way, stylish. And its “atmosphere of beautiful chaos”, as its founder, Rei Kawakubo, the fashion designer behind Comme des Garçons label, calls it, has become a very successful formula.
The cult stores of leftfield fashion designer Martin Margiela in London (a former horse hospital and art gallery) and in Brussels are the antithesis of Gucci or Prada’s super-slick, shipshape flagships. In Margiela’s London shop, display cabinets perch precariously on old suitcases, the roughly whitewashed furniture mainly hails from junk shops and there’s no storage space so piled-up shoe boxes litter the space willy-nilly. The ultra-hip Paris clothes shop L’Eclaireur also has a shabby-chic, disused warehouse vibe. Casual and inconsequential though it looks, this style of interior is widely regarded as more cutting-edge and more influential than the sleeker look of other flagships. According to Hanisch, this trend is the “most sophisticated at the moment”.
Overall, designers are putting more and more effort into tantalising shoppers to visit today’s fashion temples. Ironically, the more they sweat, the more we can enjoy.
Absolutely Fabulous! – Architecture and Fashion by Ruth Hanisch is published by Prestel Publishing; www.prestel.com (£22.99, ISBN 3-7913-3521-9)
