Fashion Marketing: Contemporary Issues, Second edition - Pr School

The international flagship stores of luxury fashion retailers 293
navy blue stained wood floor, a denim-covered sofa and high gloss white
wall panels. The shelving and display systems, made of stainless steel and
glass, seek to replicate the brand’s vibrant and modern image. In contrast,
the environment for the premium line utilizes subdued colours and more luxurious
materials. Dark walnut veneer walls, the lacquered wood fixtures, the
use of subdued lighting and the integration of leather furnishings, project a
sense of affluence and extravagance. This store, in particular, illustrates how
the language of the luxury flagship, with its array of design cues and signals,
can effectively and efficiently communicate the very essence of the luxury
brand.
Prada’s epicentre stores
Described as a modern-day Medici for her architectural patronage, Miuccia
Prada, co-owner of the Prada fashion house, has challenged the formulaic and
standardized approach to international flagships with what she describes as
Epicentre stores (Chow, 2003). Devised in the late 1990s as part of a strategy to
protect the cutting-edge image of Prada, the company has continued to search
for ways in which it could break away from the typical store design model
and so create a new form of consumption experience. When asked whether
the individualistic nature of each epicentre may undermine the cohesiveness
of the Prada brand, Patrizio Bertelli, co-owner of the company suggested:
‘Prada has such an old identity that it doesn’t need the same space
all the time. The market has become more selective, the customer
more cultured. They expect this. It’s all about communication’
(Irving, 2003, p. 26).
At a news conference in Spring 2004 arranged to announce the opening of the
latest epicentre store to opening in Los Angeles, its architect, Rem Koolhaas
proposed that the store gives people the freedom not to shop by devising alternative
sources of interest (Glasiter, 2004).
Regardless of their definition and the intention to break away from the
restrictions of the flagship formula, Prada’s three Epicentre stores that have
been opened since 2001 retain some of the core features of the traditional model.
First, each was designed by ‘celebrated architects’ – what The Architectural
Review (Chow, 2003) described as a ‘select stellar cabal of avant-garde designers’.
For the American stores – in New York and Los Angeles, they commissioned
the Office of Metropolitan Architecture, led by Rem Koolhass. For the Tokyo
store, Prada chose the leading Swiss practise – Herzog and de Meuron.
Second, all three are located within each city’s prestigious shopping districts –
for example, the Los Angeles store is located on Rodeo Drive. Finally, each
store, as we have reported earlier in the chapter, was expensive to design and
build, the budget for the Japanese store was reported to be £52 million (Chow,