This is a pretty awesome space that was originally intended to be an apartment inside the Stary Browar. The mall itself is a patron of the arts and I like to think that this would have been an apartment for visiting artists to live and work in. A kind of living studio inside of a bustling retail center that itself is filled with amazing artwork.
Starting with a raw concrete circular space that has an unfinished staircase in the middle of the floor was a bit daunting but the ideas started to flow immediately down the steps. Footwear! Bring the shoes down the steps, show the color palette mix the high tops, low tops and wedge heels. Color is the most important part of this presentation, for example making sure to bring out the red Y-3 women’s Honja Low on the bottom step instead of the black model is a small adjustment but if you have both options wouldn’t you rather see the red than another black shoe?
Robert Serek brought the long runner coming down the stairs. I think it adds a nice splash of color (again the red!) and makes the stairs an inviting place to sit back and try on some shoes. Check out the fluorescent tube lighting high up on the 7m tall walls too.
Moving on to the Apparel there were some new challenges. Rails and tables are generally square but the space is round and there is a semi-circular sunken in area in the middle of floor. Finally we decided to bring in three 2m rails curving around the first quarter of the sunken area of the floor. Keeping the space raw was important and playing against the high ceiling and mixed lighting heights the rails are brought in at different heights. The table in the middle is a bit small and I would like to see a larger one brought in to fill that area and create a proper folded apparel and accessories display. The adidas SLVR product looks so great with a wide color palette folded and stacked and this leaves the rails for the delicate Y-3 items that really need their space to breathe.
Using the same fluorescent tube lighting Robert created a scene that reminds me of a series of pistons pumping up and down, bringing back the idea of the converted brewery and big industrialized machinery.
Considering the tight timing of this project and the limited first product selection the space looks nice. Who knows, maybe this is a living space after all. Robert has already let me know that he is open to converting it and experimenting with some different installations in the future. As long as he can sell some products and maybe some artwork I think that is ok too.
If you want some background info about the mall and its connection to the arts check out the presentation below:
One Comment
i would love to have a show there.