West Broadway….stateside debut for a British style favourite

Location: New York, USA. Size: 6,000sq.ft

West Broadway marks the brands stateside debut and as such set the benchmark for their entire transatlantic brand journey. The 5000sqft store, launched in 2005 was developed from the shell of a  five-story, yellow brick faced former garage building, emerging as an destination site within weeks of opening and, as a precursor to the London flagship store, contains not only retail on the ground floor but also loft apartments, studios and offices on the floors above. With a trade-mark solidity the store boasts monumental pivotal entrance doors, custom-made from solid oak as well and what remains the biggest contemporary chandelier in the Western hemisphere – comprising of an explosion of glass rods suspended like spectral rain from the 21ft high ceiling joists. The chandelier with its storm-like presence from which all else emanates (all the central merchandise fittings at floor level spin outwards to the edge of the store – as if from inside the eye of the storm) drawing attention to the centre of the space and taking the design focus back to its original plot – a environment conceived to appear as though a space within a space, organically constructed entities within the massively spacious cavity.