RECENTLY ON THE BLOG
Soft vs. Rough N1
Architecture + Fashion N4
Menu Please . N3
Let’s Pause
Pretty in Pink
N2
N5
#InstaFriendly N6
Permanently Temporary N7
Holiday 2016 N8
SOFT VS. ROUGH Journal Entry 1 09.23.2016
Combining the luxury with the every day playing with the contrast of rough surfaces with raw delicate fabrics. Delicate lighting fixtures, raw timber, raw concrete, plaster walls. With carefully considered merchandising and dusty pink decorations, overall affect of intimacy and luxury with a dab of industrial edge.
FEMININE BRUTALIST
MOVEMENT
Rachel Comey’s flagship store located in Soho, NYC overall epitomises the feminine brutalist aesthetic. Taking a former mechanic’s garage an existing shell, renovated to a high meets low fashion luxury store. The attention to detail is astonishing, incorporating delicate lighting to a achieve a more lux look while still giving a sense of rustic-industrial edge with unfinished wooden sealing and rocky sement surface for footwear display. Making this block of sement a focal point, a powerful way to showcase the product. I must say the contrast of the rough concrete with sleek clean footwear was a genius way of combining luxury with the everyday (pavement in sidewalks).
LETS PAUSE Journal Entry 2 09.30.2016
Spring/Summer 2017 “PAUSE” - technology will go beyond its purpose to enhance wellbeing and create meaning and experience. Visual Merchandising will revolve around less hectic shopping; It will essentially provide a calming, tranquil environment, where consumers can have a space to breath. One way retail stores might achieve this with is providing lounge sleep on shaped seats.
PAUSE “INVITING, COMPELLING & DREAM-LIKE IN APPEARANCE”
The movement overall, it trying to adapt to a life that would be less about what you own and more about how you live. Time will also become an ultimate luxury. This is where materials come to play. The movement wants to be able to provide shopper a place to unwind, using soft inviting materials that can be touched.Lighting will be coming to play to provide that tranquility. Creating them with soft, tactile, but solid material that are also fragile. Overall, this is a movement that is believed to continously progress and interpreted in many styles, it is something that will probably be expected to be seen in stores that are looking to take customer experience to the next level by challenging all five senses through furniture, lighting, delicate fixtures, color and space. While keeping it simple and maintaining a plush lux look.
MENU PLEASE. Journal Entry 3 10.07.2016
Over the past year we have learned the struggles of brick-and-mortar stores. While e-commerce continuos to gain momentum, brick-and- mortar habits had lessened by struggling to adapt to new market expectations. Brick-and-Motor stores have been striving to create new experiential dimensions for consumers. Incorporating stylized in-house eating and drinking options. This concept has also been adopted in many retail locations. A fashion - food dialogue has definitely emersed and will soon be seen as a common thing to have in fashion stores.
BUT FIRST...
COFFEE While I have come across some fabulous examples about this emerging trend in the industry in WSGN, I wanted to share one that was able to enjoy on my own. Club Monaco in Union Square New York, offers a connected library the Strand Bookstore, and small coffee shop, Toby’s Estate Coffee that connects through the store. Customers are encouraged to stroll through and browse an extensive library of lifestyle books. Ralph Lauren being Club Monaco’s Parent company also has adapted this concept in their 711 Fifth Avenue, 10022 New York. Again, something to tie back to the movement “pause”, creating a more inviting, less hectic and more tranquil environment for customers.
ARCHITECTURE + FASHION Journal Entry 4 10.21.2016
Architecture and Fashion have become one over the past few years. Every detail counts now, so much competition and easy accessibility has set the bar higher for brands to truly stand out. It is crucial, particularly for this upcoming generation - in other words, the new market to be given a full experience. This has presented many opportunities for collaborative work, one that has recently emerged and has stayed strong is architecture, gaining momentum within the fashion industry. One great example is the collaboration between Valextra, an Italian Leather brand, who recently opened a London flagship with the help of Canadian designer Phillipe Malouin. “Malouin approached the space as a domestic environment, creating an intimate language that combines materials and colors to celebrate the exquisite Valextra product.�
LIGHT BLUE CARPET UNITES THE SPACE
In the main, the store invites costumers to look and feel merchandise. The designer did a great job playing with space, not only by conscious about the negative space but also being mindful about color to maintain that sense of openness that creates an appeal of luxury.
PRETTY IN PINK Journal Entry 5 10.29.2016
Millennial-minded brands, niche restaurants, and hip publications are embracing the millennial ink. The color has become a shade that is gender-neutral, instagram friendly, and refined rather than tacky and cheesy. Hospitality - New York trendy matcha cafe, Cha-Cha is fully open to the public, the space reflects their branding, using pink to complement the inevitable matcha green. The space features green furniture, plants, and a pink patterned cha-cha wallpaper, creating an eye-catching photo ready angle.
PINK IS BACK “THE COLOR SHEDS ITS TACKY CONNOTATIONS TO BECOME THE SHADE OF THE MOMENT”
Furthermore in Retail, the color has adopted a more sophisticated feel. We come across pink in many forms: pink & brass, pink fitting rooms, soft pop interiors, and the unexpected combinations of color and materials. Design that had been considered poor in taste but is now ironically somewhat appreciated has transcended feminine styles. Look at the examples below. Exquisite pastels can be seen through lighting, and washed tones accompanied by hard materials like darkly colored marble for a striking effect, combining femininity with precision, preventing it from looking too girly, and making contrast visually appealing. A men’s store that is successfully conducted the approach to pink is called, APROPOS The Concept Store, featuring light almost white pink walls, and pink furniture with combination of bras, blues, and dark marble materials.
#INSTAFRIENDLY Journal Entry 6 11.08.2016
Samsung 837, NY
Due to the unstoppable growth on e-commerce. Stores are increasingly recreating themselves, providing areas that enhance the overall store experience. The goal is to deliver a space that consumers can’t access through the web. Shops are being mindful about design, fabricating spaces that are irresistible to your smart phone lens, an image one-step away from becoming a shareable post on instagram. One store in particular that has truly outdone itself, “Samsung 837’s new experience store in New York takes the concept of designing for Instagram to the next level” - the space is known as the “social wall”. What better way to market yourself than to make it visual?
INSTAGRAM HAS BECOME THE SOCIAL NETWORK FOR IMAGE-BASED SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING.
A new method to create a buzz on social media is by incorporating striking architecture, fixtures and lighting, and making them the stores center-pieces. The idea emerged from this insta-shareable movement. Some staircases that have been highlighted as iconic pieces in WGSN article designing for instagram are the following: New Barneys Chelsea store in New York, white spiral staircase. Normann Copenhagen, a tunnel feel and entirely pink staircase, and lastly, Dolce & Gabbana, Tokyo, Gold staircase with a soft candle like lighting that creates a sense of curiosity as it leads you into a almost pitch black room creating perfect contrast with impactful almost theatrical 2-D footwear display.
PERMANENTLY TEMPORARY Journal Entry 7 11.09.2016
A mesh between store design and merchandising strategies with instagram is now growing common. A demand for newness has retailers on their tip toes, and to be mindful about space. Developing a compeling space with formats of display that can be easily changed is a new approach to this demand. This will facilitate and quicken the process of rearranging and refreshing stores for visual merchandisings teams. First Image on the left features Ruco Line Ruco for Innovative Shoe display.
FLEXIBLE ADAPTABLE, VERSATILE DISPLAYS
Multifaeted spaces are flexible to different consumers as well as to a larger range of products. Movable displays, all-purpose fixtures, unprecedented instalations are all new component that gravitate towards keeping things playful and alligned with current trends. Furthermore, it enables reinvention and stores priority to be innovative in check at little cost and little effort. Using modular units (Seek No Further) that are typically seen in pop-up stores for display, ranging in sizes and prints. Wheeled shelves and furniture (Nanamica Mountain) , give a sense temporary, a more transient feel. A particular store that has been able to create this temporary ambiance, is called Ne Sense adopting new hanging system that utilizes metal and magnets for permanently temporary feel by easily re-merchandising. This movement exemplifies newness and freshness will encourage changing consumers a reason to pop in.
HOLIDAY 2016 Journal Entry 8 11.15.2016
Holiday Window - The Book Club
Bergdorf Goodman department store is a relic from the past, and their visual team has made sure 117 years of legacy resonate through their displays both indoor and outdoors. Known for their attention to detail, elegance, dramatic, theatrical, and luxurious styles.
Holiday Windows at Bergdorfs have become an iconic holiday tradition. Notorious for creating the most enchanting experience in retail this time of year. On November 15th, Windows were unveiled and Bergdorf Goodman, has once again outdone itself.
BERGDORF’S WINDOWS THEME THIS YEAR IS “DESTINATION EXTRAORDINARY.”
Holiday Window - The Book Club
A total of five stunning still lives, ranging in color, from dense green to green blue, The Book Club, The Scenic Route, The Winter Garden, The Hitchhiker, and Bird’s- Eye View. The intricate windows required nine months of work with a team of prestigious artisans, responsible for high embellishment, hand painted backdrops, and unit set pieces. Among them is Johanna Burke, owner of Burke and Pryde. She shared her experience while working on “The Book Club.” This window displays a Green Jungle that involved a great amount feathers, embellishment, and plant materials to create a variation of highly decorated beaded monkeys. The end result had a blender of decorative patterns, that remain wild, but still stay true to Bergdorf’s Image. The holiday windows will be on display through January 2, 2017—
THANK YOU