In 2002 Chloe asked us to come up with a concept for their stores. The brand has attitude. Chloe’s image is pretty but also spirited and unpredictable and my aim was to show the contradictions inherent in the Chloe character and to give the shops an edginess which is missing in many luxury designer shops.

We drew our inspiration from things as disparate as Trojan gold, Rodin’s Gates of Hell and a trailor-trash girl at a ballgame.

The first store that we built was in Sloane Street, London. We made the space as airy and expansive as possible, and laid out the furniture in a casual way. There are no formal separations, light diffusing glass screens and rails of clothes loosely divide the spaces to create fluid “rooms” through which the customers can wander. Only mirrors lean against the walls.

We created understated furniture using materials traditionally thought of as flashy or even vulgar (gold plate, pink marble) and worked with them in a high tech way (such as cutting the marble wafer thin to give table-tops the effect of unnatural slimness). Then to create tension we panelled the walls in untreated plywood.

This plywood has become a signature now that the shop concept has been rolled out and is seen in stores worldwide.

There are now 70 Chloe stores either built or in development for opening by spring 2007. We are responsible for designing these stores along the lines of the original concept, with the flexibility to modify the designs to suit the various markets worldwide and to take into account their cultural differences.

Associates on the Chloe projects:  

Lighting:
Arup - www.arup.com

Structural engineering:
Dewhurst MacFarlane - www.dewmac.com
FJ Samuely - www.samuely.demon.co.uk

Chloe: www.chloe.fr