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Comme des Garçons Paris

Client: Rei Kawakubo, Comme des Garçons

Location: Rue Saint-Honoré, Paris

Year: 2001

Done in partnership with Shona Kitchen, as Kitchen Rogers Design

Brief: To create a design for the brand’s flagship store inspired by the notion
that ‘an alien wave’ had swept into the interior.

Set off the Rue du Faubourg St-Honore, the design experience of the store
begins in the courtyard through which it is reached, where glossy red panels
line the windows, obscuring the view in and imposing red doors glide silently
open as the customer approaches. Immediately facing is a 15 metre long
counter and opposite that a glossy red fibreglass skin flows the length of the
shop, covering everything in its path – walls, ceiling, doors, lighting, horizontal
and vertical planes – the alien wave. The fantastical red corridor leads to a
brilliant white ante-chamber with a polished concrete floor where the retail is
housed. Within this sanctuary like space clothes hang from metal rails
suspended from the ceiling and folded t-shirts sit on extruded rubber benches,
presented to the customer like objects in a museum.

Across the courtyard we created a 55 m2 pavilion, in which a set of red cubes

spend the day moving silently through the space, spinning and shifting in a
hypnotic way. This was not to be a retail area but an intense concentration of
the whole concept. The pavilion has now been given over to retail, expanding the
possibilities of the store.

The whole design teeters on the brink of installation art and design, both
functional and transporting at the same time. Years on, it looks and feels as
fresh and exciting as it did on day one and continues to attract a stream of
visitors.

Comme des Garçons Flagship Store, Paris

Ab Rogers Design

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