Bernhard Willhelm Tokyo Flagship Boutique

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Bernhard Willhelm Tokyo Flagship Boutique

Firm

Type

Commercial › Retail Exhibition Center
Hospitality + Sport ›
Cultural ›

SIZE

300,000 sqft - 500,000 sqft

BUDGET

$0 - 10K

THE GREAT INDOORS AWARD 2007 - Jury ReportThe retail interior that item idem fashioned for the fashions of Bernhard Willhelm is rooted in the flamboyant German coutu- rier’s postmodern potpourri of pop, colour and sex. Tucked into a department store
in Shibuya, the 50-m2 boutique emerged from a brief that asked the designers to be ‘resourceful with rubbish’ and to make a flexible interior easy to reconfigure – a place that would strip visitors of their inhibitions. Makeshift dwellings housing the homeless of Japan – recyclable structures of card- board and plastic – gave the designers their concept. Crammed with an array of items discarded by a booming consumer society, the boutique offers shoppers a trendy tour of a dense and decaying urban jungle de- signed to be transformed, six months later, into a wilderness with an entirely different look. A shop that doubles as an art instal-
lation – and that was knocked up for little more than €5000 – makes the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture a matter of debate. It illustrates the pleasure offered by insignificant objects and the aesthetic inherent in recycled materials. This inte- rior radiates the optimism found in the tarpaulin towns of those on the fringes of an upwardly mobile society and asks that we contemplate the presence of quirky teen- age apparel displayed within a seriously seasoned shell. Do pricey clothes up the status of modest materials? Or do modest materials up the status of pricey clothes?
Here in Shibuya an appreciative jury hears a jagged counterpoint to more me- lodic examples of retail design: virtually no other competition entry features the anti- aesthetic that runs rampant at this flagship store. Bernhard Willhelm’s freaky fashions
have been stunningly translated into a retail environment that feels like a collage, a junk puzzle that simply happened – without the benefit of design. Nothing could be further from the truth: to make this shop work – and it does work – item idem needed a crisp, precisely implemented design. The jury is aware that crudely assembled interi- ors thrown together overnight have enjoyed popularity in the form of so-called ‘guerrilla stores’ for some time now. It’s a thought that triggers two questions. Is this shop (and this award) simply a matter of the right work at the right time, and is it something that represents the beginning or the end of a trend?

Product Spec Sheet

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Team

Cyril Duval

conceptual director

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Bernhard Willhelm Tokyo Flagship Boutique

Bernhard Willhelm Tokyo Flagship Boutique

Product Spec Sheet

Collaborating Firms

Team