Store gallery: Vinçon in Barcelona puts product centre stage

Yet often it is the fixtures and fittings that get noticed, leaving the product high and dry. Not so at Vinçon, a supermarket for design products on Barcelona’s Passeig de Gràcia.

This is a deep and relatively narrow shop divided by industrial-style shelving into multiple rooms and where the backdrop is either black, grey or steel with lighting focused solely on the products. And because of the nature of the offer, much of the merchandise is brightly coloured allowing the shop itself to almost fade into obscurity.

This is a simple technique, but it is rarely as effectively practised and it is given added impetus by Vinçon’s highly idiosyncratic approach to visual merchandising. This is best seen in the store’s arcade-style windows where at present some large retro-looking fridges are coupled with Serrano ham pigs’ legs, Laughing Cow branded boxes, and a host of household items in a manner that can only best be described as pop art VM.

The window opposite takes an umbrella and more or less deconstructs it, visually justifying why it is a product that is important to own. The point about both displays is that, like the store interior, it is the products and their arrangement, rather than the window surrounds and backdrop, that do the talking.

Pulling this kind of thing off is a matter of fine judgement and is perhaps why so many retailers rely on creating dramatic stages on which to show their offers - it’s almost like a safety net. Nevertheless, as an example of visual merchandising minimalism, this is about as good as it gets.