Store gallery: Paperchase opens Glasgow flagship

It’s not often that a store takes the shopper by surprise, if only for the simple reason that in these days of highly formatted offers one can look almost exactly like any other, irrespective of location.

It is a pleasant surprise therefore to come across a shop that breaks the rules both in the way it presents itself to the passer-by and when they step across the threshold.

The store in question is Paperchase, which opened a “flagship” in Glasgow two weeks ago. The arguments against having more than one flagship heading a fleet are, of course, pretty well rehearsed, but the facts are these. At 15,000 sq ft, the stationery and card retailer’s new store is the second biggest in its estate, after the multi-floor Tottenham Court Road. It also boasts an interior that even gives it a claim to be the chain’s true flagship.

Stand outside this shop and the vista is impressive. With a 50ft glass front, incorporating what is supposed to be an envelope design, the shopper gets a good idea of the two-floor store’s interior, although the envelope conceit might not be immediately apparent.

Either way, this is an idiosyncratic shopfront that sets it apart from the rest of the stores along Buchanan Street - Scotland’s principal shopping thoroughfare, according to Paperchase chief executive Timothy Melgund.

Melgund relates that the road to this store opening has been long. He says: “We started looking for a site in 1997 and we waited until the right one became available. If you choose the wrong location, you can’t put it right. It’s the hardest thing to get right.”

He adds: “The density of people that walk up and down Buchanan Street is second to none, and the Glaswegians are second to none in their appreciation of art.”

That is just as well given the cost of getting this store open - more than £3m - but for the art-aware Glaswegians who venture into this shop, it will be a departure from the retail norm in the city.

Design-neutral interior

The store design, internally and externally, is the work of Chichester-based consultancy Wingate Design Partnership. Owner Ken Wingate uses the ‘F’ word too: “We’ve tried to make this a flagship and to make it more interesting inside and outside. Paperchase is very design-orientated.”

He says that the store is “design-neutral”, in order to allow the generally brightly coloured products to speak without any danger of being overshadowed by the shop itself.

That may be the case, but upon entering the store, it’s hard not to be impressed by the view. At the front, in the mid-floor, there are colour-themed gifts displayed on plain wood and metal rectangular tables with grey, punched metal cubes sitting on top acting as visual merchandising props. To the right there is a range of plain box files and the perimeter walls are white. Overhead, and stretching deep into the shop, there are square, lit tiles that look like an illuminated version of hopscotch.

The floor is plain wooden planking, living up to Wingate’s promise, and as the shopper looks further along the right-hand perimeter wall, it becomes apparent that although the tone is white, the palette of materials varies along its length. In the mid-shop, the pillars supporting the upper floor are in different block colours.

Note should also be made of the greetings card display ‘spinners’ around halfway through the ground floor, which form part of floor-to-ceiling poles and are what Melgund refers to as “stilts”. These provide an appropriate level of density for a core Paperchase product (the Paperchase store on the concourse at Euston Station, which trades almost entirely in greeting cards, has a sales density of £3,500 per sq ft, according to Melgund).

It is to the left that the store’s real drama reveals itself, however. Midway along the wall is the staircase that leads to the first floor, which is a thing of concrete, glass and steel beauty. Unusually, this contemporary Palladian-style staircase is not anchored to the floor, but is instead suspended by hefty steel ropes from the ceiling. Glasgow’s metro, aka ‘The Clockwork Orange’, runs directly beneath the store and by suspending the staircase it is hoped that in-store vibrations felt from it will be minimised - the structure touches the floor only via rubber pads.

Surprises in store

Head upstairs and the chances are good that a pause will be made to admire the steel-and-glass pigeonhole wall that rises from the staircase balustrade level to the ceiling on the first floor.

Pendant lights with huge battleship grey shades and white interiors will also be noted, as will the primary-coloured, cat’s-cradle sculptures that emerge from the wall in the upper part of the stairwell.

Owing to the twin sets of stairs that lead to the upper level, the stairwell occupies a large portion of the first floor, but when the top is reached the shopper is presented with a choice.

To the right there is a Tinderbox café (there is another Tinderbox in the Tottenham Court Road store, which recently replaced a Caffè Nero), which Melgund says has the “ambience of a 1950s Milanese coffee bar”.

It’s a good-looking place in which to relax and enjoy an espresso and one of the many cakes that are on offer.

Turn left from the staircase on the other hand and there are pens and leather goods in freestanding glass cases, and beyond this lies the art materials.

The leather goods and pens have their own area, set back behind the stairwell, which features satchels in wall niches (The Cambridge Satchel Company has even given Paperchase tartan satchels on an exclusive basis
for three months) and smaller high-value items.

The larger Paperchase stores have always been known as repositories of handmade paper and artists’ drawing papers and the space devoted to them, at the far left-hand reach of the first floor, packs a few surprises.

Foremost among them is the floor in front of the paper display units, consisting of coloured glass tiles that combine to create an effect not unlike the floor of a 1970s disco.

There is also a rectangular block in the middle of the floor that has a flatscreen across its top. Here nascent artists can create designs digitally and then email them to themselves or their friends.

Paperchase is a store that defies formatted categorisation therefore, and it could be the best thing in Glasgow’s retail universe at the moment.

Melgund says that the interior of the Tottenham Court Road store dates from 1999 and that “of course this looks better - it’s newer”. It does and it is, and in spite of being smaller than the London flagship, it’s a moot point whether this really is the new Paperchase flagship that proudly leads a design-led fleet.