Hospitality Design - December 2016 - 87

The Sephora Beauty T.I.P (teach, inspire, play) Workshop in San Francisco

A Qela display

Luxury brand Qela's retail store in Doha

>Experiential Retail

George Anthony Gottl, CEO of Amsterdam-based branding and design firm
UXUS, discusses what he's seeing in retail today.

Shifting Mindsets

All the norms, all the social paradigms are going away. The Victorian era
of the kind of formality that we've had in the past is finally gone. The 21st
century is really about a new set of rules and a new generation that has
a completely different set of morals, of things they aspire to be and to
have. If there's one word for the future, it's fluid-fluid values,
fluid identities, fluid aesthetics. People who can't assimilate will
struggle.
The new luxury is feeling fulfilled somehow. It could be that
you buy a product because it's so beautifully crafted rather than
manufactured. It could be affordable or something extremely
expensive, but what matters is that the experience connected
through that transaction is enriching. Luxury values are no longer
about possessions. It's about rarity and personalization of service.
Brands are trying to create transformational experiences.
Qela is a couture luxury experience that we
designed for Her Royal Highness in Doha where
the average purchase is $265,000. It is completely
understated-the luxury is subtle like curves
and shapes because they're more expensive to
manufacture; a curtain looks like it's made out
of fabric but it's actually carved sandstone,
and jewelry units are almost robotic in
terms of how they present products.

Today's Store

Does a store still need to function as one? Or
is it more like a showroom, a place to absorb and
connect with the brand and products? To browse,
learn, engage, and then shop? The new currency is
not buying the product, but the brand. For Sephora,

we designed the Beauty T.I.P (teach, inspire, and play) store where
education and inspiration are part of the intricate customer journey.
It goes beyond the expectations and disrupting into an in-between
world of entertainment and education and establishing a ritual around
it that's fun and differentiating. There's a playful, new way of looking
at products specifically customized to the consumer. The transaction,
the actual value, happens when these things are snapped, shared, and
put on social media. The investment now happens physically in
the store-not the huge advertising budgets they used to spend
hundreds of millions of dollars on.
When we build spaces, whether for retail or food and
beverage, we always think, 'what's sharable about this
design? What's unique and exciting enough that someone's
going to take a picture?' It used to be form follows function-
now form follows feeling. We build spaces to emote something.

What's Hot

Art and retail-we call it culture and commerce-is
incredibly important. Design of the future has to
have meaning to those that you're creating it for.
Contemporary artists like Damien Hirst and the
Chapman Brothers are producing goods that
are not collectible from a museum perspective,
but are inspired by their art and point of view.
These objects tend to be clever, irreverent,
and interesting more so than normal [and]
commercialized.
Food is probably the biggest and
most important sector right now in
terms of consumer experience, where a
lot of creativity and experimentation is
happening. It used to be you would define
yourself by the rock bands you listen to; now
it's the food you eat.

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