A LIFESTYLE LESS ORDINARY
Feel like giving your home, and yourself, a total makeover?
Just head to a ‘concept store’, where they’ll sell you a sofa, a cellar, a sexy outfit or even a salsa class. James Wallman picks six of the best in Europe
IS it a shop, is it a bar, is it a deli? No, it’s a concept store – a new sort of outlet that doesn’t sell, serve or provide a specific thing or set of things like a shoe shop or a bar does. These fusion stores might mix furniture and art with wine, or food with clothes. Sounds a bit like a department store but this is less Are You Being Served?, more Wallpaper*. Here, we’ve separated the hip from the hype to give you the lowdown on Europe’s best concept stores…
01. THE ORIGINAL
Celebrating its 10th birthday this year, Paris’ Colette is the queen of concept stores. Offering its clientele ‘styledesignartfood’ in one place, the key to its success is the coup de coeur – the whim – of owners Sarah Lerfel and her mother Colette. This has led them to open a Water Bar that stocks 80 different H2Os, and make Colette the only place in France to stock Kate Moss’s collection the same day as it was released in the UK. Proving it’s a shop with a difference, the store also organises Monday night dance classes. Hosted at superchic club Paris Paris, they teach a different dance each session. Previous themes include the dance styles of MC Hammer, Britney Spears and John Travolta.
Classes take place on the first Monday of the month (except July and August) and start at 10pm. There are 25 places only, so you’ll need to queue from 9pm to be sure of getting in.
Colette, 213 rue Saint-Honoré, Paris +33 (1) 5535 3390, www.colette.fr
02. EVERYTHING BUT THE KITCHEN SINK
“For me, the concept store is just an environment selling anything that I like,” says Nell Strijkers, founder and owner of Sprmrkt and SPR+. “I didn’t want to be bound by the sort of label that means we only sell one thing. If I like something, we stock it. We could sell a toilet seat or a kitchen sink.”
Strijker hasn’t come across any toilet seats or kitchen sinks recently that she has especially liked, so you may have to go elsewhere if you’re shopping for those when you’re in Amsterdam. This summer, she suggests you make a beeline for The Snake, a vintage, multi-shape sofa you can move to any position that takes your fancy.
But if you haven’t €20,000 spare for that, other things to look for include Acne Jeans from Sweden (from €140) – “They’re simple but still special and very cool and all of us wear them” – almost anything by Martin Margiela, and the latest edition of Fritz Hansen’s Republic magazine (free) – which features Sprmrkt, of course.
Sprmrkt, Rozengracht 191-193, Amsterdam, +31 (0)2 0330 5601, www.sprmrkt.nl
03. PLAYING WITH FOOD
“We’re like farm meets design studio,” says Karlijn Souren, food designer at Proef Amsterdam. Dutch for ‘experiment’ and ‘tasting’, Proef is an ideas-led kitchen that began in Rotterdam in 2003 and has an Amsterdam outpost in the Westergasfabriek, a new hive of creativity. “Everything we do has this concept: to look at food as a designer,” says Souren.
For Dutch underwear designer Marlies Dekkers, Proef once created canapés to match a new lingerie line. And at a party where the host wanted guests to get to know each other, each person was given half a plate of either ham or melon and had to team up with whoever had the other ingredient to create a dish to share. Ideas like these made Proef Amsterdam such a hit, it was too busy to open to the public – until the beginning of June.
Try Proef’s all-organic and macrobiotic food – salads feature marigold and violet flowers (from around €5) – and they’ll also point you towards the best spots to picnic in the park. So where’s the farm? Well, they have a pet zebra finch called Tony and the eggs are laid by their own chickens.
Proef, Gosschalklaan 12 (in Westergas park), Amsterdam +31 (0)2 0682 2656, www.proefamsterdam.nl
04. NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK
Germany’s capital is changing fast. Last year’s big news on the concept store front was The Corner Berlin, whose “customised mix of fashion, accessories, beauty, electronics, books, music, film, art and 20th-century vintage design and furniture” has been browsed by the likes of Demi Moore, J-Lo and Mario Testino. It’s super chic, of course, and it’s also the closest a concept store gets to being a department store without actually being one.
Founder Josef Voelk’s favourite new arrivals this summer are Albrizzi plexiglass backgammon sets (€125), a black leather Joe Colombo Elda chair from the 1960s (€5,900) and carrot, apple and ginger juice at the new organic bar (€5).
Moments away is the newest lifestyle concept.
Opened in May, Strange Fruit is 450m2 in size – that’s about two and half tennis courts – dedicated to clothes, bags, shoes and jewellery you can’t find elsewhere in Germany – such as vintage Cutler and Gross sunglasses (from €400) and trainers by Kitsune (€439). Heaven, for the designer shopper. The Corner Berlin, Französische Strasse 40, Berlin +49 30 2067 0940, www.thecornerberlin.de Strange Fruit, Markgrafenstrasse 33, Berlin +49 30 2061 4255, www.strangefruitberlin.com
05. THE ‘FASHION EXPANSION’
‘Fashion expansions’ are like mini department stores run by a single label. We’re not entirely convinced by Nicole Farhi’s 202 shop in London’s Notting Hill. To avoid the atmosphere of a library as shoppers sift through clothes that come in beige, taupe, oatmeal and other colours that might suit a grey day in December, they’ve integrated a bustling café into the shopping experience.
Why only buy a simple shirt (from £99) when you can also go home with a tatty table – sorry, vintage piece of furniture (from around £2,000) – and then sit and think about the ‘steal’ you’ve just made over a goat’s cheese salad with prosciutto, figs and rocket (£9.95), while rubbing shoulders with Notting Hillbillies straight out of a Harry Enfield buffoon sketch? Perhaps you like your clothes to match the plates you’re eating from? This summer’s yellow cardigans are laid out next to yellow glass plates.
Annoyances aside, one of reasons to go is that you don’t have to wade through the entire Farhi range – Nicole herself handpicks the furniture and a selection from her collections.
Fashion expansions are also at the Burberry Concept Store, Prague, and the Likous Concept Store, Krakow, where the LFC Boutique (nothing, apparently, to do with the Merseysiders who kick a ball about) stocks Diesel Denim Gallery, Dsquared2, Gianfranco Ferre, Martin Margiela, and hosts a delicatessen, vinothèque and bar.
Nicole Farhi’s 202, 202 Westbourne Grove, London +44 (0)20 7792 6888, www.nicolefarhi.com
06. NOW YOU SEE IT…
In the hunt for exclusivity, Japanese design group Comme des Garçons (CDG) has pioneered a new form of limited edition: a shop that opens for a specific time period. Since 2004, Guerilla Stores have opened for one year only from Singapore to Glasgow. Robert Serek opened Krakow’s on 24 March this year in a 300m2 warehouse. “We plan to open for the full year, but it’s a huge space and will be difficult to heat.
We might close when winter comes,” says Serek.
Alongside CDG lines such as trainers from a collaboration with Reebok – which arrived in the store at the end of May (around €100 a pair) – are clothes by Junya Watanabe, Raf Simons and Polish designers. This summer, look for Amy Kuczinska’s show-stopping underwear and Katarzyna Szczotarska’s simple dresses. And then there are 1950s-style second-hand wooden, plywood and lacquered furniture (from €150).
Poles think these ugly but Western Europeans, says Serek, find socialist era furniture really cool. As apparently did Rei Kawabubo, CDG’s head designer. “This old Polish stuff,” says Serek, “could be on show in Comme des Garçons’ Oyama flagship store in Tokyo by this time next year.”
Comme des Garçons Guerilla Store, Petersheim Factory, ul. Hetmana Zolkiewskiego 17, Krakow +48 (1) 2357 1432, www.guerilla-store.com
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