The store in Regent Street is the first GANT flagship store in London. Its opening coinciding with the switch-on of Christmas Lights in Oxford Street was a big event for the fashion house, that has been recently re-branded.

The original brief’s theme was, obviously, Christmas and the “Gift Giving”. Big emphasis was placed on the creation of an activity area visible from the main window where people could exchange presents. The proposed key materials were brass, oak and white marble in order to differentiate the pop-up vocation of the activity area from the rest of the shop.

The choice of materials palette, initially inspired by the brief, during the design phase became more related to our desire to experiment with materials, especially casted concrete and explore themes of form and frame. In fact the brass is introduced to the space in its standardize form, directly informing the concrete table and podiums. The concept of positive and negative is further explored in the two shop windows, where a solid brass tree is complemented in the adjacent window through the lightweight, suspended dowels which frame a triangular view into the store.

Beginning as a screened lining to the Vitra Wall and allowing at the same time for shelves and hanging rails to hang uninterrupted, the timber dowels transition into the space for use within the window display. Using the repetition of a single element a diverse field of vertical lines adds interest and a sense of visual spectacle to the store, differentiating the activity area from the rest of the store. The main inspirations at the beginning were the Sonambient Sculptures by Henry Bertoia.