Birkenstock
Store design | Furniture design | Lighting design
For a challengingly small footprint in Covent Garden, we were invited to create the first UK flagship store for the UK distributors of Birkenstock, from its architectural shell to its exterior façade.
Famous for its handmade sandals with moulded cork soles, Birkenstock have remained notoriously anti-fashion even during their fashion reprisals, and have become a cool statement about individuality and personal style. The new location offered an opportunity for our client to present a fresh and more prominent focus for a brand they had successfully introduced to the UK over 40 years before.
With a small sales area and a very broad product range, and to enable the sales team to remain close to customers as much as possible, the store plan had to work hard to get the best use of every cubic inch, while presenting a clean and uncluttered space. Numbered shelving bays provided a discipline to product displays and modular overstock boxes alike, whilst the use of real oak display furniture, soft flooring and wood details brought a human touch that reflected the hand-crafting skill of the shoe maker.
We worked closely with the shoplifting contractor, Opus, specialist furniture makers TT Solutions, and the Italian lighting manufacturer, Iguzzini, who helped us specify linear LED lighting systems that complemented the design, while demonstrating the financial benefit of reduced life-cycle costs.