The brief to the up-and-coming design practice was to make this Hong Kong store for fashion designer Gareth Pugh hard and shiny to complement the aesthetic of the label. Job done.

Details

Client: Gareth Pugh
Design: Daytrip
Size: 70 sq m
Completion Time: Five months

Project Details

When interior designers take on a new retail project, the first step is usually to immerse themselves in the brand they are designing for. So if you already know its aesthetic and values inside out, it’s bound to give you a head start. This was the case when fashion designer Gareth Pugh asked up-and-coming design practice Daytrip to design his new store in Hong Kong.

‘Gareth and I have been close friends for over five years,’ explains Daytrip’s creative director and founder Iwan Halstead, ‘and I have followed his career from the very beginning, from his first collections in London, to his latest shows in Paris. I’ve watched his brand grow and mature and become the label we see today, so I think Gareth felt comfortable with me approaching his store design.’

As a brand, Gareth Pugh already had a strong aesthetic, which Halstead describes as ‘dark and moody’. ‘One of the first things Gareth told me was that he wanted [the store’s aesthetic] to be “hard and shiny”, as that has always been relevant to his work,’ says Halstead, who also suggested a Busta Rhymes video directed by Hype Williams and the film The Witches of Eastwick as inspiration.

Pugh was also keen to incorporate a digital element into the store’s interior and he wanted video work on which he had collaborated with online fashion and art project Showstudio to feature strongly.

Halstead created a video wall, which he says became the main feature of the store’s design scheme. ‘I decided to clad the interior walls and ceiling in black mirrored glass to reflect the video wall across the whole store, increasing the illusionary effect of space and depth,’ he explains.

The video wall occupies the far end of the store’s main cube-shaped room so that it can be seen from the street through the store’s window, making the shop look like a giant TV; it shows videos of Pugh’s latest collections alongside his video work.

Around the perimeter of the store, garments are displayed in recessed and illuminated rubber-clad bays. A second retail space to the right of the main store has more clothes in recessed rubber bays and seating upholstered in black fur. There are also two concealed doors, one to the changing room which is upholstered in triangular leather tiles, and another accessing the back-of-house and storage areas.

As well using plenty of shiny and hard surfaces to complement Pugh’s clothing designs, Halstead also selected contrasting materials. ‘Wherever his clothes are positioned we juxtaposed the shiny black mirror with matt black rubber and glowing light boxes in the perimeter wall bays and floor plinths,’ says Halstead. These contrasting finishes of matt and shiny, light and dark, have been used throughout the store.

‘We choose to continue this in the changing room, making it a very bright and clinical space with upholstered leather tiles in light ash grey to provide a completely different feel from the retail space. Some people refer to it as a padded cell, which only enhances the dark and sinister feel of Gareth’s collections.’

The main space is intentionally dark, but, as Halstead says, there are only a few photons between creating an atmospheric interior and plunging the product into obscurity. ‘We clad every element from ceiling, wall and floor in black mirrored finishes, immediately creating a very dark space,’ he says. ‘The video wall provides some light but that wasn’t sufficient to illuminate the clothes, so we decided to incorporate light-boxes in the perimeter bays and floor units, and we reluctantly incorporated some concealed light tracks in the mirrored ceiling to light the floor units and wall bays.’

It may not be the easiest store to navigate, and you’ll not find your way to the changing rooms without assistance, but, as Halstead says, the new Gareth Pugh store ‘is a real spectacle in itself, a place that feels almost like an art installation rather than retail store’.

Suppliers:

Furniture: Bespoke by Daytrip Co


All other FF&E from local suppliers

This article was first published in FX Magazine.