From time to time you come across a format that it’s quite hard to improve upon - one where the original design is sufficiently strong and the brand sufficiently well funded for none of the usual value engineering to take place.
From time to time you come across a format that it’s quite hard to improve upon - one where the original design is sufficiently strong and the brand sufficiently well funded for none of the usual value engineering to take place. This looks to be the case with the latest flagship store from shoe brand United Nude, which has opened a New York flagship in Lower Manhattan.
The store is 18,000 sq ft, trades from a single level and is similar to, in most respects, the first of its kind, unveiled in central Amsterdam at the end of 2009.
It is also that rare beast, a store that is perfectly in tune with the sculptural stock that it houses.
The main event in this shop is the back wall, a claim that cannot be made for many stores, but in this instance
the eye-catching ‘wall of light’ - a computer-controlled light system fitted behind a curving wall of pigeon holes, demands attention.
Architect Rem D Koolhaas, related to the global architectural superstar of the same name (minus the initial), is responsible for the look and feel of this shop, which he calls a “dark” store, in that the only elements that are lit are the shoes themselves. And it would be hard to wander past this one without pausing to find out what the glass cubes atop polished wood plinths are all about: they’re actually simple display cases.
If retail is about being different from your competitors, then there are few better examples of the process in action than this United Nude format. And if show-off shoes are your thing, then the chances are good that there will be something to interest you as well.
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