High fashion

Lorenzo Perini and Lino Losanno.
[More Images]

Italian architects, Lino Losanno and Lorenzo Perini, speak to CID about the art of effective retail design

Lino Losanno and Lorenzo Perini met 14 years ago, and have worked together ever since, initially as associates at architecture and design firm, Nardi Associates, and then as partners in their own Firenze-based firm, PLS Design.

At Nardi, they were responsible for the retail sector, and worked with the biggest names in Italian fashion: Dolce & Gabbana, Valentino, Gianfranco Ferré, Malo and Iceberg, to name but a few. They travelled the globe opening up stores for fashion’s most fabulous, and even came to Dubai to open the emirate’s first ever Dolce & Gabbana store.

Residential projects in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait followed, and the pair have kept in contact with the region ever since. Last month, they were back in Dubai to mark the opening of their latest project, the new Western Furniture showroom on Sheikh Zayed Road. CID caught up with them to find out more about the world of high fashion.

Story continues below

Advertisement

FEATURED COMMENT Please click here to comment on this article

Lino Losanno: We were walking through Fashion Avenue in Dubai Mall the other day and said, ‘Wow, you don’t need to go to Rome or Paris or Milano any more. You can just come here and you get everything – from new concepts to new designs’. That’s mesmerising.

It’s a different kind of feeling, of course, then walking on Sloane Street or Bond Street in London, or Avenue Montaigne in Paris, or Via della Spiga in Milano. But in Dubai, especially with spaces like the big malls and hotels,
you have more of a chance to express yourself, because the spaces are totally empty. When you work in old cities, you have to deal with old buildings and sometimes the design is led by the nature of the building. But, in this case, you are totally free.

It is a different kind of creativity when you deal with an existing structure. In Europe we are sometime overwhelmed by the power of existing buildings. It’s a different kind of thing here; you feel free to express yourself 100% and that’s very interesting as a designer.

How did you become involved with the new Western Furniture showroom?

Lino Losanno: One day we received a phone call from the contractor who was working on this project and he said that the client was asking for an Italian architect. We sent him our resume and two days later I was here. Two weeks later the design was on the table.

What did you do with this design?

Lino Losanno: We came here and we found a totally empty box with very high ceilings and big windows.

The client told us they were going to sell home furniture, but it is kind of difficult to put home furniture into a warehouse. So I thought we should build a house within this building. And that’s how we came up with the idea of a box inside a box.

We then fragmented the space into several different kinds of atmospheres. We have the entrance area which is more ‘monumental’, with a big water feature and a big staircase, but the rest of the space is divided into what could essentially be a home. The ceilings are lower; the lights are lower; the colours are combined in a way that makes you feel like you are at home. You feel comfortable.

That was the first idea. The other element was communication. We thought that the logo needed to be seen and recognised. You have a big ‘W’ on the outside, and we also had a set of columns on the inside of the building, so we wrapped corten ribbon around the column and created a big ‘W’ over the cashier’s desk. Corten is a naturally rusted steel. It changes with time because it becomes more rusted, so it will be even nicer in a few months. It is an evolving material, which was very interesting for me.

And then you had the staircase, which is the second element. It had to attract people to go upstairs and see what was there. It is always difficult to get people to move to the second floor of a space.

In this case, we have a big part of the collection upstairs so it was important to attract people up. People will look at this steel, mirror and glass staircase and think: ‘I want to go up there’.

Of course, there is also the fountain, where we are bringing natural elements inside, especially in the area where they display outdoor furniture, upstairs on the deck. They have outdoor furniture and tables, so I have tried to make people feel like they are outside.