Retail

Fashion central

The LED staircase invites visitors in

Versace Home now has a flagship store

Versace has opened a flagship Versace Home store. The 5,380sqft store is on Milan’s Via Durini, the heart of the city’s upmarket interiors area. The store was developed by Vudafieri-Saverino Partners, which has extensive experience in the luxury retail sector and has worked with names such as Delvaux, Pucci, Tod’s, Moschino, Sonia Rykiel, Clergerie, Jimmy Choo and Buccellati.

An important aspect of the design is its duality of classical and contemporary. The historic Durini building is particularly well-suited to this polarity: the palazzo architecture is paired with details that nod to modern design. Industrial detail is used to revisit the label’s distinctive symbols and shapes, resulting in an eclectic space. This mix of styles fully reflects the personality of the Italian label, showcasing the Versace Home collection designed by Ludovica and Roberto Palomba in collaboration with Donatella Versace and providing a template

The corridors have contrasting flooring

The hidden garden space

for the brand’s future showrooms.

The exterior of the palazzo features a facade with columns topped with statues depicting the arts. A set of LEDilluminated steps leads the visitor inside. Spread across two floors, the layout of the store resembles a home and features an entrance, hallway, dining room, study, long corridors and a master suite with bedroom and living room. A real jewel is the secret garden, which is initially concealed from view and brings a breath of fresh air and light to the store, creating a wonderful connection with nature and the outdoor space.

The walls of the store reinterpret classical design and their symmetrical cornices are broken up with gold-leaf detail, off-set and almost random, to act as a backdrop for shelving.

A homage to Versace’s irreverent, provocative spirit, this interruption in flow is also a feature of the corridors, where alternating gloss and matte marble flooring creates a remarkable sense of contrast. The curtains are another feature: mesh panels have replaced fabric in a glance to industrial style and pay homage to Versace’s ongoing exploration of textiles.

The store is made of several rooms

Above and below: gold-coloured doors divide spaces

The store is in Via Durini, Milan Gold plays a key role in the colour palette

Gold leaf is used throughout the showroom

The Versace Home collection is designed by Ludovica and Roberto Palomba in collaboration with Donatella Versace

Gold, a distinctive Versace feature, plays a key role in the colour palette. In its softest tones this can be found on the golden backlit plates of the ceilings and on the stretched sheet-metal doors.

Contemporary references are evident in the large screens and the LED-lit entrance steps, where video content creates a link between the world of fashion and the world of Versace Home. Another stand-out aspect of the staircase is the wallcovering featuring Versace’s iconic Greca pattern, which is turned to repeatedly throughout the store. Visit: www.versace.com

The store will be a template for future showrooms

Can you keep track of all transactions?

Beware

Refunds should only be to the original payment card

How you process card payments can prevent fraud

‘We can all agree that retail has drastically changed over the past few years. Most change has been consumer driven. However, many retailers are ignoring core operational processes as they run fast to catch the consumer. A critical area in retail today that needs proper evaluating for change is your credit card processing processes,’ says Jesse Akre, RetailSystem president.

‘Gone are the days of simple in-store charges. Today it is phone orders, Internet orders, social orders, orders with several payments due to staggered product arrivals and deliveries: a mess to track and control. And in that mess and retail chaos are often opportunities for fraud.

‘Look at your current process. We have all noticed the supervisor card, sitting on a shelf somewhere near the sales terminal: the importance of the security

Mistakes can happen of this card is often underrated. It needs to be in a convenient place to allow employees to process a refund, but ease of getting the deal completed must be balanced with satisfying the customer that security measures are in place.

‘We will all have experienced delays at the end of the day due to cashing up not balancing, especially if you are using a manual system. This can simply be down to an honest error in recording the value of a sale, for example inputting it as £24.90 instead of £249, or it could be due to a dishonest employee using the supervisor card to process a refund to their own card. Sadly this has probably happened to most of us. Some are aware, some aren’t, as you simply write it off because you cannot find it amongst the dozens of transactions in a day. Most retailers never catch it. A proper solution to consider is one where the pin entry devices (PEDs) are automatically fed with the value of the transaction, removing the possibility of manual input errors.

‘Retailers also need to consider a solution where the only refunds that can be processed through the PEDs are ones where the original sale was recorded on the system, as a refund or part refund can only be refunded to the same card used to make the purchase: these details are securely stored on the system.

‘Make sure you keep an eye on possible fraud points and find solutions to mitigate that risk.’ Email: Robin@myfurniturepay.com