LG LIVE STORE SINGAPORE
Technology stores tend to follow a fairly prescribed path with products presented in lines with little to differentiate one from another. The LG Live Store in Singapore breaks this mould with a 3,767 sq ft store based on the principle of ‘conceal and reveal’. It relies heavily on interactive technology allowing shoppers to test-drive the
sleek gadgets. The store is carved into distinct areas within a white box, with each separated by freestanding floor-to-ceiling panels that carry interactive screens. Although this is not for budget shoppers, it is not top-end in terms of pricing.
FIXTURES LIVING CALIFORNIA
New home furnishing store Fixtures Living allows customers to try before buying. The 21,000 sq ft store has a chef that will help you prepare a meal for up to six friends before you purchase the cooker of your choice. Alternatively, you can just take off your clothes and have a shower (in a private area, of course) using several different showerheads. The retailer has dubbed the in-store experience a “joyful journey”.
JOE FRESH NEW YORK
New York is the first out-of-home-country location to benefit from Joe Fresh, the clothing format owned by Canadian grocery and general merchandise retailer Loblaw. The store’s distinctive white and bright orange design and careful visual merchandising gives the impression prices are comfortably mid-market. It is in fact a value-led proposition that has taken the Joe Fresh brand from
nowhere in 2006 to the fourth best-selling label in Canada. Joe Fresh is the perfect example of a food retailer creating a format that allows consumers to forget they are buying clothes from a food retailer. This branch, in lower Manhattan, is the second to open in the city with a third under construction.
GLOBETROTTER MUNICH
Outdoor sports stores feature in many of Germany’s larger cities, but this 69,968 sq ft, four-floor giant is not only bigger than most, but it boasts features that you are unlikely to find anywhere else. Situated in the heart of Munich and designed by Hamburg architect Professor Holger Moths, the store includes a pool in the basement, where you can try your hand at canoeing, a high-altitude cold room to assess the quality of arctic weather clothing and a seemingly endless glass climbing wall.
TREASURE & BOND NEW YORK Treasure & Bond Joe Fresh
Seattle-based department store owner Nordstrom has taken its first bite out of the Big Apple with a two-floor store on West Broadway that bears almost no relation to its parent and which is less than a tenth of the size of a normal Nordstrom. Treasure & Bond probably has Anthropologie and Merci, in Paris, as its closest relatives, but is still different from those, owing to its philanthropic approach – all profits from this store are donated to New York charities. Opened in August 2011, the retailer has taken a two-year lease on the building and it is rumoured to owe its existence to a conversation between US V
ogue
editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and Nordstrom executive vice-president Peter Nordstrom. 14OZ BERLIN
The store has been around for a couple of years and is intimately linked with Bread & Butter, the denim trade show that takes place biannually in Berlin. As such, it is a haven for fans of branded jeans and comes complete with a ‘brand menu’ at the store entrance. But what makes it interesting is how it constantly changes to keep in tune with the fashion vagaries of the trade show. In January, for instance, you could relax in the store’s garden (which has painted
14OZ
garages that are opened in summer to sell sale merchandise) during Bread & Butter. Owner Karl-Heinz Müller had laid on free coffee, tea and local sausages for those seek- ing refreshment – an approach not seen this side of the Channel and paying dividends.
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