There was no getting away from using the bow-tied bunny logo in the Playboy Club, so the design for the new Mayfair venue has used it extensively, but in very subtle ways...

Details

Client: London Clubs International
Design: Jestico + Whiles
Size: 1,700sq m
Completion time:Six months

Project Details

For architecture and interior design practice Jestico + Whiles winning the competition to design London’s new Playboy Club was cause for celebration, but there was one obvious hurdle ahead: that logo. The bow-tied bunny, designed by Art Paul in the Fifties, is a visual cliche, and yet you couldn’t have a Playboy club without it.

‘The logo was definitely a challenge,’ says James Dilley of Jestico + Whiles, ‘because it did have to feature heavily in the scheme. We persuaded the client that although displaying the logo prominently might work for the Las Vegas club, London needed something a little more understated.’

A running joke in Playboy magazine has the logo is hidden somewhere in the cover art or photography. In much the same way, Dilley and his team had some fun sneaking it into some unexpected places.

Approaching the understated two-storey building on London’s Old Park Lane, there’s a single monochrome bunny logo by the entrance, but get a bit closer and you’ll see that the black acrylic folding screens which obscure the ground floor windows sparkle with hundreds of illuminated bunny heads. Inspired by Arabic mashrabiya screens, these are used throughout the ground floor to create an intimate atmosphere – and to shield clubbers from the paparazzi outside.

What the screens hide is a sumptuous cocktail bar run by celebrated barman and mixologist Salvatore Calabrese, and a luxurious afterhours club called the Cottontail Lounge. For the cocktail bar, Dilley and his team were inspired by Calabrese’s extensive collection of fine Cognacs, including bottles from as far back as 1834. The most prized are displayed on bespoke hexagonal shelves in a glass case running along one wall, and the rich, amber hue of the drink appears in a bespoke hexagonal pattered carpet and in the amber seams of a luxurious marble bar top. ‘There was absolutely no compromise here,’ says Dilley. ‘It had to be the best.’ A similar hexagonal shelving unit displays bottles behind the bar.

Fibre-optic pendant lights hanging in the cocktail bar create what Dilley calls an ‘ethereal quality’, but as an additional light source simple spotlights are angled so that their beam bounces off antique black glass cocktail tables. The idea is that the drinks’ napkins will be folded into the shape of the bunny logo and will appear as silhouettes on the ceiling, ‘something like the Batman symbol’, says Dilley.

While the look of the cocktail bar is one of classic opulence, the Cottontail Lounge is funkier, with deep red upholstery and lighting pulsing in shades of pink and purple.

The scheme is designed with strong atmospheric distinctions between the floors: the lower floor, darker and more nocturnal in feel, takes the theme of ‘hell’, while the brighter look of the upper floor translates as ‘heaven’.

Visitors aiming for the upper floor can take the lift, lined with bright raspberry-coloured fabric, or stairs, flanked with walls covered with framed black and white photographs of stylish high-rollers and Playboy girls – the ‘bunnies’ – taken in Sixties, the heyday of the original London Playboy Club.

A bright white landing at the top comes as a surprising contrast to the dark opulence of the lower floor. ‘This is the transition into “heaven”’ and so it’s light, open and uncluttered,’ says Dilley. The landing is lit with clusters of lights and features a London phone box, painted white, which contains a hotline to the other Playboy clubs.

The casino on the same floor also has subtle representations of the Playboy logo: on opposite walls, graphics made from old Playboy magazine covers have been arranged so their colours create the shape of the Playboy logo. And in a salon prive, a private gambling room, timber wall panelling is interspersed with leather panels embossed with the bunny logo, placed so that it can only been seen from a certain direction. The classic look of this space has been brought up to date by using blue leather instead of brown and painting the oak panelling in the same colour.

So, according to Dilley, what began as a challenge has actually become one of the most successful elements of the finished scheme: ‘It was a really great opportunity, because for a designer the strength and dominance of a globally recognised logo such as the Playboy one can be quite restrictive. The fun in this project was in breaking out of that and applying it in new, unexpected ways.’

Main suppliers:
Flooring:

• Britons Carpets - britonscarpets.com
• Domus tiles - domustiles.co.uk
• Johnson Tiles - johnson-tiles.com
• Turgon flooring - Turgon.co.uk

Materials:

• Antonlini Luigi & Co - antolini.it
• Glazeguard - glazeguard.com
• IPIG - ipig.biz
• NES Solutions - nes-solutions.co.uk
• Page Lacquer - pagelacquer.co.uk
• Seamless - seamless.co.uk
• Sekon Glass - barretsgroup.net
• Via Arkadia - viaarkadia.co.uk
• Yarwood - leathersyarwood.co.uk

Sanitaryware:

• Duravit - duravit.co.uk
• Hansgrohe - hansgrohe.co.uk

Wall coverings:

• Abbott &Boyd - abbottandboyd.co.uk
• Muraspec - muraspec.com
• Osbourne & Little - osborneandlittle.com
• Service Graphics - osborneandlittle.com
• Swaffer - swaffer.co.uk

This article was first published in fx Magazine.