As Britain’s ailing high streets recover from the double dip recession and burgeoning online sales, retail interior designers are increasingly seeking new ways to help generate interest in their client’s constantly evolving brands and create exciting and enticing new retail spaces.
Photo by Clark Street Mercantile on Unsplash
In recent years the main retail design trend has been for minimalism – with clean lines and muted colours featured in many retail interiors and retail window displays. Some brands have disappeared from the High Street altogether, preferring to do the majority of their retail sales online.
Now one British retail interior designer has decided to buck this trend and has reimagined luxury French fragrance brand Diptyque Paris with the creation of a beautifully detailed, vintage-inspired retail interior at their London store in Leadenhall Market.
The store design is inspired by both French and English architecture with a very Victorian twist. The store front features curved dark wood and brass fittings, with the interior design based on that of a traditional French perfumery. Shoppers are greeted by a small dark walnut desk surrounded by walls decorated with brightly-coloured Victorian style tiles and stained glass. Mirror-backed display cabinets contain rows of perfume bottles creating an illusion of more space and more bottles – as they would have been in a traditional Parisienne perfumery.
After the glut of minimalist and monochrome interiors, this space to some may seem cluttered and heavily lit, yet to others it offers a snapshot of time gone by. Evoking the feelings of old-school luxury and glamour traditionally associated with the perfume industry and often lost in today’s stark interiors and plain product packaging.