Levi’s flagship store, London

16 June 2010

Levi’s flagship store, London

The new London flagship store for Levi jeans turns retail philosophy on its head, with the store front given over to origin, a whitewashed and raw- brick art and exhibition space created by a long-time designer of stores for Levi’s, Checkland Kindleysides

Details

Project: Levi’s flagship store, London
Designer: Checkland Kindleysides
Size: 793 sq m
Completion time: 21 months

Project Description

After almost 27 years of working with denim giant Levi’s on stores from San Francisco to Paris, it’s no surprise that branding and retail design specialist Checkland Kindleysides was chosen to redesign the company’s flagship London store in Regent Street, but the result is far from formulaic.

This brief was to create a destination in its own right, where the usual rules of retail design do not apply. In a truly bold move, the front of the store – 80 sq m of some of the most expensive retail space in the world – is used not to display garments, but as an exhibition space for product collaborations and art exhibitions.

Known in the store as Origin, this area has a whitewashed ceiling and reclaimed brick walls, and can be sectioned off from the rest of the space by two huge sets of wooden factory doors painted indigo. The current display features work by a group of musicians and artisans which Levi’s has chosen to front its latest advertising campaign.

The main part of the store has been designed to resemble a workshop or factory; materials including brick, concrete, wood, wired glass and raw steel are combined with pale oak, purposeful handcrafted furniture and cream-coloured enamelled metals inspired by industrial sewing machines, ovens and dryers.

Furniture and fixtures are simple, solid, functional and flexible, so that the store can be easily rearranged to keep it interesting. On the shop floor, garments are displayed in metal frameworks with a cream stove- enamelled finish and Georgian wired glass, as used in factory doors and windows.

More products are displayed on lower- level shelves made from metal pallets standing on stacked oak blocks to give the feel of a factory loading bay. There are also oak and bonded-glass display cases for accessories. Around the perimeter of the shop floor, rolling racks and shelves display hanging and folded garments, while seasonal campaign imagery, and frames of the original jean material duck canvas, present advertisements placed higher up on the walls.

Continuing the rough, factory-inspired aesthetic, the designers created a product gallery, which runs along one wall and over the stairwell. It is lined with stove-enamelled, waist-height, metal cabinet lockers and open shelving to stack products, with mannequins and a graphic above to visualise the garments.

Leading to the basement floor, a staircase has backlit glass risers and the insignia XX laser-cut into each tread (XX being the original mark that represented the highest quality denim produced for Levi’s by the Cone Mills textile company). This subtle design detail also provides grip on the stairs.

Running alongside the stairwell is the basement gallery, a wall exhibit spanning 5m, which displays components used to create Levi’s jeans, such as tailoring shears and bobbins of blue thread.

Nearby, an original pair of 201 jeans from the 1920s, from the Levi’s archive, is securely encased in glass and set against a backdrop of tailors’ patterns.

At the end of a 5m-long cash desk that runs to the back of the store is the 501 Jeans Warehouse. Containing jeans in 22 different washes, it is separated from the store by floor-to-ceiling glazing and has a mirrored back wall so that it seems to go on forever.

The basement also houses the Inspection Room, which is designed to make it as easy as possible for the customer to find their perfect pair of jeans. The area is split into zones, allowing customers to shop by either fit or finish. Key fits and finishes are displayed on tailor’s forms and in illuminated stove-enamelled inspection cabinets, simply labelled with stenciled letters and numbers. To the front of the basement floor is a staircase, which spans the width of the store and leads up to the fitting rooms where Levi’s footwear is displayed on oak blocks.

Here walls are lined with duck canvas, a reproduction of the original canvas used by Levi Strauss in the 19th century. The changing room doors are scaled-down versions of the heavyweight industrial doors found at the store entrance. Alongside the fitting rooms, a display of vintage weaving shuttles pays homage to the brand’s craft heritage.

Fine craftsmanship is at the heart of the Levi’s brand and, according to Checkland Kindleysides director Jeff Kindleysides, this has been the most successful element of the scheme. He says: ‘Overall, I think the feeling of craftsmanship had come across really well.’ And Tim Larcombe, general manager of Levi’s UK Group agrees, describing the store as ‘the most genuine experience of the Levi’s brand in Europe’.