ANTHROPOLOGIE
Background Information After visiting London 2 years ago, I came across a store called ‘Anthropologie’ in Chelsea. I had never heard of or been to one of the stores before, and it was relatively new to the UK, after being founded in America first. It is a very popular store in the USA, and England now has three stores all of which are based in London, Manchester and Edinburgh. Anthropologie first struck me with its amazing and innovative window displays, its something that grabbed my attention from even the other side of the road. At a closer look, I realised how intricate the displays were, all completely handmade by the creative visual merchandising team of the store. Each store has their own VM team, who are given briefs monthly, and will converse in order to come up with their own ideas together and implement them into the store windows. Everything is sourced from existing materials, and almost everything is completely handmade by the creative team. Some of the most popular materials used is paper, cork, card and paint, something you would not usually expect, but it is amazing seeing what textures, patterns and surfaces they can create using these standard materials.
Visual Merchandising The fantastic VM design is continued throughout the entire store. There is always something to look at as the interiors of the shop is completely decorated with things to see, all of which are extremely tactile, colourful and complimentary of the products they sell. Anthropologie specializes in selling clothing and interior accessories, as well as jewellery, art/books, and interiors for the home and garden. I have visited two of the three stores based in London and it still never fails to amaze me how well the creative team have implemented such fantastic visual merchandising and store design. It is almost overwhelming – but in good way. Your eyes are always moving around the store and everytime I visit I notice something new that I’ve never seen before. The store in Kings Road, London, has an entire wall which has been decorated in real life plants and greenery, which creates a very dramatic impact to people who come into the store. It arouses the shoppers senses of sight and touch immediately.
VM of the Store
I have chosen to write an Article about Anthropologie because it is one of my favourite stores in terms Visual Merchandising and store design. The store produces mainly handmade displays created by an instore visual merchandising and creative team, so I feel that it could be a very interesting article that explores how they produce such amazing window displays and interior merchandising by using the most simplest of materials, and how the company doesn’t have as strict guidelines for their VM. Each store always has a completely different and unique window display, so no displays are ever the same, they only have the same theme. Seeing as its not a very well known store, I feel that it would give it more recocognition, and it is very different compared to the design and visual merchandising of other stores in London.