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ARCHITECTURE BOUTIQUE SHOPS

coolest stores

There’s a whole new crop of wildly inspirational boutique stores opening throughout the world.

Here’s our check-list of some of them

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Prada store, Epicentre, is in the fashionable Aoyama district of Tokyo December 2008 | www.lifestyleliving.in

LL BUREAU NORMANN COPENHAGEN (DENMARK) A majestic former theatre, Normann is complete with a sweeping staircase. Its full range of designer homeware products, an hourglass-shaped coin bank by Karim Rashid, an inventive bedside water carafe contributed by Marcel Wanders—is the obvious draw to its Copenhagen flagship store. The dramatic arches and grandiose columns remain untouched. The stage has been reinvented as a platform for clothing and accessories by Denmark’s most promising new talents. The unassuming entrance adds to the impact: shoppers are funnelled down a simple merchandise-lined corridor, then suddenly the hallway opens into a soaring, awe-inspiring space.

PAUL SMITH (LOS ANGELES) British designer Paul Smith’s ingeniously conceived boutique, this place is located smack in the middle of Los Angeles’ famed Melrose Avenue shopping strip. This giant, bubblegum-pink box is an inspiration from the spare, high-desert dwellings of Pritzker-winning Mexican architect, Luis Barragán. It easily stands out among the endless blocks of generic glass-fronted facades. Unity is maintained throughout with simple white walls, reclaimed wood floors and wood-beam ceilings. The 5,000-square-foot space has a set up like a studio, with a series of disparate sets designed with a nod to the movie-making industry that powers LA. Each section has a particular focus— the men’s suiting area, for example, is an intimate, masculine space with wood-panelled walls, chandeliers and an enormous abstract painting of a rabbit.

MOSS (LOS ANGELES) The first thing that you will notice are the dozens of floor-toceiling crystal columns glittering through the plate-glass windows. The baby grand piano, hand-crafted by acclaimed Dutch designer Maarten Baas to celebrate the store’s opening, is another item on the watch list. Lucite boxes with whiteneon Moss logo are scattered all over the store. There is also a collection of wood screen from Studio Job. Just be prepared to be surprised.

December 2008 | www.lifestyleliving.in

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ARCHITECTURE BOUTIQUE SHOPS

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Christian Dior Omotesando Building, Tokyo December 2008 | www.lifestyleliving.in

COMME DES GARÇONS (NEW YORK CITY) When you enter you feel like entering a high-fashion alien craft. There is the futuristic element present everywhere, of which brings more excitement as to what is at the store. It has an industrial aluminium tunnel with an egg-shaped door bisecting the tube and the passageway.

LAIRESSE APOTHEEK ((AMSTERDAM) Lairesse Apotheek is a different kind of drugstore. It breaks away from the conventional style, and is designed by a Dutch architect firm, Concrete, the clients of wich include Mercedes Benz and Utrecht’s Central Museum. The circular room, which is the main section, has floors printed with gingko leaf photos and medicinal products are arranged in 522 floor-to-ceiling transparent drawers, glowing with green backlight. The standout element is the huge tree trunk that appears to grow up from the floor to the ceiling.

LONGCHAMP ((NEW YORK CITY) London-based Heatherwick Studio, a hipster firm known for its offbeat works, such as a retractable pedestrian bridge in Paddington, reinvented this 1930s building, located in SoHo’s epicentre. The most outstanding feature is an enormous cascade of undulating steel strips that radiate from the centre of the shop, flowing ribbonlike down walls, over stairs, and seemingly right out the front windows onto the sidewalk. It took six months to construct and instal it all. A motif of fluidity is continued throughout the store. The staircase banisters are wrapped in clear acrylic, which makes them look like they’re fluttering in a breeze, and handbags— the bread-and-butter of Longchamp—are displayed on the most delicate wooden shelves you’ll ever see.

APARTMENT (BERLIN) Apartment is a purpose-built, underground bunker, with stuff from the latest emerging designers. These days when most retailers attempt to use their floor space Apartment has a different take. The ground floor looks like a quickly vacated office with almost nothing.

But when you look closely, you’ll discover a video projection from the boutique in the cellar to indicate where all the action really is.

A stairwell at the back of the building takes you to a dark cavern of clothing and accessories.

DASLU (SAO PAULO) If you have a helicopter, Daslu has the helipad. This $50-million highclass mall is a Italianete villa, designed by architects Ricardo De Marco and Chinho de Luca, and is well-known for its customer service. The swankiest mall in Brazil, it caters to the mega-rich. As you enter, you are assigned a ‘Dasluzete’, or shopgirl, who will assist you. Golf carts will transport you from one place to other. Major portion of the store is devoted to women’s clothing, with around 40 mega-brand boutiques. You can find almost everything from Bang & Olufsen audio systems to Jaguar convertibles.

December 2008 | www.lifestyleliving.in

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ARCHITECTURE BOUTIQUE SHOPS

LOVELESS (TOKYO) Loveless is designed with the good-versus-evil theme and stands out as the most inspiring boutiques in Tokyo. This three-storey shopping emporium has 100 different brands. The interiors are divided into Brilliant Side in the upper floor, which represents the colourful side, and Dark Side in the basement, which gives a feel of the dramatic dark areas. A stairwell takes you through a tunnel to the subterranean level where you can feel the design element of being in a dungeon.

You can call it a split-personality store.

LOUIS VUITTON (PARIS) This place stands out in the middle of Paris’s posh fashion crossroads—the corner of Champs-Élysées and Avenue George V—and is the largest freestanding Louis Vuitton store in the world, and it more than lives up to the hype. Outsized details are the norm, such as the foyer’s enormous cluster of thin metal rods that drape from the ceiling to create a dramatic rainlike effect, or the crystal-studded, cutout metal partitions that encircle each department, the pattern mimicking the petal motif stamped onto Vuitton’s legendary monogram bags. In fact, this graphic floral pattern is repeated throughout the store, on inlaid wood details and scattered across window backdrops, as is the classic Daimer checkerboard motif. Dancing along the walls, facing a long escalator, are fibre-optic squiggles created

by Tim White-Sobieski, and an express elevator to the top-floor Espace Vuitton art gallery was masterminded by subversive Danish talent Olafur Eliasson, who cloaked the carriage in black velvet to make it sound- and stimuli-proof.

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DOVER STREET MARKET (LONDON) This multi-level hipster mega-boutique is located in Mayfair and is by Comme des Garçons mastermind Rei Kawakubo. It offers a broad range from design-world visionaries, from Alber Elbaz for Lanvin to Martin Margiela, plus Kawakubo’s own broad range of offerings. There is a violently disorganised display of designer accessories that looks as if it has been ripped through in a fit of rage. This place is witty and inspiring, and the prearranged mayhem to create a compelling, cohesive environment is pure genius in retail. The offbeat dressing rooms are brilliant—a gilded gazebo fashioned into a birdcage-like enclosure, with dramatically swagged red velvet curtains and a matte-black-painted Port-aPotty that has been repurposed as a men’s changing area.

December 2008 | www.lifestyleliving.in