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Left The iconic interior of Apple’s 5th Avenue, Manhattan store


IN MOMENTS of crisis, we all think about the future, what it will bring to us, and how will we adapt and enjoy the many new ideas and challenges.


It is enough to watch the news to be confronted by a feeling of confusion, even if we want to embrace whatever comes our way with optimism. Our own version of this imaginary scenario depends on our personal stage in life and how strongly we can apply a level of positive thinking and creative imagination. Regrettably, the future is not a moment in time, but a constant moving dimension of blurred metaphors that never stops and stays still. Films have always been a good reference – a kind of fantasy pre-metaverse world – suggesting illustrative imagery that influences our perception of future days and encourages our reaction. From Lumiere’s Trip to the Moon, the German expressionism of Fritz Lang in Metropolis, to the science fiction films in the 50s, Kubrick’s 2001 and later Blade Runner, Gattaca and Ex-Machina, right up to the metafiction of the Marvel movies. Tese screen inventions of the future are part of a stimulating collective ‘imaginarium’, a fantasy that rarely translates later into a tangible reality. We project ideas of the future that are far more exciting – in some cases more disturbing – than whatever comes next. It is a kind of innate forecasting system that allows us to reassure ourselves of the days ahead and be prepared to embrace change.


It is not a coincidence that retailers and consumers these days are talking of the future of retail, and how the so-called ‘store of the future’ might physically look. Te moment we define it, the concept is already moving on, pushing us into a frustrating chase.


As a designer with many years of experience in dealing with successful and motivated single- minded clients, I have often been presented with the gift of a great design brief: a new, ground-breaking concept that will change the market or attract a new one. A revolutionary brand repositioning that will somehow encompass the illusion of bringing to reality the ‘store of the future’.


I remember well the excitement when given the opportunity to reinvent Top Shop for the 80s generation, or being tasked with transforming the Burberry brand from a British white elephant to a global success in the 90s and, more recently, reimaging the Harvey Nichols department store for new times.


AARON HARGREAVES / FOSTER + PARTNERS


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