Most people will have come across interactive windows in some form or another, whether it is the films and animatronics variety, triggered by movement, or the sort that play music when you approach that were in vogue a few years ago.
Now, the newly launched Avery Fine Perfumery in posh Mayfair adds a new dimension to this kind of appeal with a shop that provides a “spritz” (their words, not mine) of scent as you pass close to the window.
In a play on the store’s name, the windows are large aviaries, each housing fragrance bottles on perches, with a brown-wood fascia in keeping with Mayfair’s restrained glamour.
Step inside and the interactivity continues with animatronic flowers that blossom when the air is disturbed and three different types of birdsong, from tropical to woodland. The avian theme
is deployed across the shop, with wallpaper depicting Edwardian-style line drawings of birds and feathers and giant moths incorporated as part of the visual merchandising. Oh yes, and there are perfumes too, presented on a rococo dressing table with bird’s feet.
In many ways this shop negotiates that tricky territory between perfumery and beauty salon, as it is frequently quite hard to gauge where one ends and the other begins, but this makes the distinction clear. Equally, this is that increasingly uncommon beast, an independent specialist perfumery - as most of the time the territory is occupied by a couple of large chains or as part of a larger retail proposition within department stores. The shop has been designed by Lilian Driessen.
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