Mods, mansion and manor houses

Every year has its store interior clichés and 2009 is no exception. Spend time with a handful of store design consultancies or consultants at the moment and it won’t be long before the phrase “the manor house” is casually dropped into the conversation.

For those who think this something of a non-sequitur, it isn’t.

There is a trend in store design circles currently to say that what was in mind when creating a new environment was to capture the ambiance of a manor house.

Practically, this is a way of conveying that a retailer has been around for a while and therefore the notion of placing it within a knowing take on a historical setting is not only justified, it is positively demanded. And the design cues are simple - a lot of brown wood, some battered-looking leather armchairs and perhaps a few junk shop curios.

The fact that manor houses proper haven’t been built for probably a couple of centuries is broadly immaterial. What is at stake is instant heritage. It would be churlish to name names, but it’s a trait that’s been establishing itself ever since Ben Sherman took the unusual, at the time, step of theming its stores around the notion of “mods in the mansion” – different from a manor house, perhaps, but along the same lines.

Back then, and this was some time ago, it was an innovative idea. But having received an email on Friday that another store had been created with the “notion of a manor house in mind”, visions of bandwagons sprang to mind. Perhaps there is, at some level, a search for security in the approach. When times are uncertain, you want a guarantee of continuity and all-round prosperity and the thinking probably goes that there can be few more appropriate and uplifting images than a manor house.

But when designers begin to flood high streets with mansions or manor houses, there’s trouble ahead and perhaps retailers should be querying what’s being offered. There is, of course, an alternative – workhouse chic.

Imagine a store fit-out that featured plain untreated wooden tables, rusting metal, dim lighting and the sense that you’ve wandered into some kind of institution - and you’d probably be looking at a cross between All Saints and Urban Outfitters.

This is the flip side of the coin: rough luxe.

Both approaches have their merits, but both have been around for a while. It’s to be hoped that the unveiling of Anthropologie this week provides something new and different. Particularly in a recession, novelty remains at a premium.