Just Jeans .. Rebranding for the mass market

Location: Melbourne, Australia. Size: 6,000sq.ft

d-raw collaborated with creative business stratergists ‘The Future laboratory’ & graphic designers ‘Madethought’ on a full brand and stratergy repositioning for this Australian favourite.

In essence, our design is intended as an environmental rendition of The Future Laboratory’s strategic thinking to create a destination for the Just Jeans brand. Intended to elevate and add inspiration to the existing proposition in order to RECLAIM and consequently OWN denim. In keeping with the premise of a flagship store the Chadstone Just Jeans is both a playground for new ideas, and a core brand statement of honesty, skill and heritage.

As a store it is an experience that serves to reinforce Just Jeans true and deserved authority within the denim market while clearly signifying it’s constant and visionary commitment to inspire the consumer.

Our starting point for the store design was the entrance due its potential as a captivating visual aperture into the world of Just Jeans – an aperture with the unique capacity to turn a currently brand disaffected target audience into engaged, inspired and ultimately loyal consumers.

In doing so, influenced by the brilliantly graphic utilitarian simplicity of petrol stations and the famously intoxicating wide open spaces of the Australian landscape, we’ve opened the store front up to the furthest edges, pushing back the perimeters of the traditional-style façade to create a clear and inviting entrance which not only distinguishes the flagship from the identikit design philosophies of its neighbours but also sets the tone for the entire store (and indeed brand) experience.

A direct result of cultivating this ‘openness’ in the design will be to psychologically signify a level of sincerity from the outset, a genuine and unforced welcome to those consumers whose loyalty to Just Jeans may have lapsed. This ambience of sincerity will also echo the grounded, paired back visual brand language being developed by Made Thought, further inferring Just Jeans as a brand firmly rooted in the tradition of denim.

Having swept those barriers aside we then designed a ‘decompression zone’: a 5 metre space devoid of product stretching back into the store to allow consumers to slowly, and crucially without the pressure to purchase, re-familiarise themselves with Just Jeans as a brand once more. Entirely concerned with establishing brand perception the treatment for this area is concerned with establishing a stage for some pure visual theatre that will force consumers to re-evaluate, and consequently re-engage, with a brand they thought they knew everything about.

The idea is to create a space where Just Jeans will be able to display a passion for denim verging on obsession – a space reclaimed from the regular selling floor – to prove a level of commitment and an intensity of spirit that goes way beyond any brand competitors. It is a space designed to give a little breathing space to a constant rotation of denim-based installations, and possibly even gallery style seating – non-sales motivated tributes to denim and denim culture (to reinforce that denim is most definitely the Just Jeans brand hero) – to re-ignite a slow-burning but distinctive allure that will trigger a new affinity with the brand and ultimately entice the consumer further into the store.

The ceiling has been lowered to half store height in order to vertically pull some focus back to the wide-open horizontal store-front and infer a friendly touch of intimacy that balances the industrial and technological elements threaded neatly throughout the fabric of the design such as the LED screen that stretches back along the underside of this lead-in ceiling. This LED matrix system panel can be used to display anything from random sequences of fashion/design visuals to moving imagery to text to campaign shots.

The flooring throughout is parquet, a material historically relevant to denim to generate a sense of permanence, authenticity and respect rooted in tradition – albeit refined in order to add a premium edge and a nod to Just Jeans ability to remain as contemporary as their consumer.

Moving through the store and the emphasis shifts to a kind of carefully contained chaos as the consumer moves into the more product heavy, functional part of the store where the denim proposition really comes into it’s own.

In an artfully orchestrated sense of disorganisation denim of all shapes, sizes and styles becomes the main event but although the design accommodates the necessity for high volumes of product it is without any compromise as to the overall visual aesthetic. Functionality and high volume are celebrated as positive facets that inform the landscape and the resulting design emphasises this by using large, dual purpose storage/display units which exploit volume to achieve sheer impact, scaling the walls – stacking, folding, hanging and wracking the multiple styles of denim like a fantasy stockroom built on the perfectly dove-tailed tenets form and function.

The idea here is also to allow for a level of transition from the previous Just Jeans visual language, recognising the heritage of the brand and it’s valuable place in the consumer consciousness, but translating it into a much more covetable contemporary experience. Further echoes of the omnipotent ‘modern industrial’ creative vision resonate in strip LED panels which, slice through the middle of the shelving units establishing a further synchronicity between high and low tech components of the store design which will keep a visionary space feeling grounded at all times.

To the right hand side of the store is the ‘denim gallery’ – a space constructed from reconstituted shuttering plywood treated with a luxe-look white gloss finish – essentially making the unloved loved, returning to the solidity and authenticity of industrial base materials while allowing the addition of a subtle but visually powerful design treatment to raise it to the next level.

Echoing the entrance space this wall provides more space for pure creativity and visual play, a platform for narrative corresponding to the lead denim stories at any given time.

The free-standing low-level floor fixtures have been designed with a specifically ‘Bleisurite’ aesthetic preference in mind – jettisoning what is obviously superfluous and fussy in favour of artfully constructed, sculpturally shaped metal – simple and spacious alluding to the fact that synthetic ‘hi-tech’ materials, can also be sumptuous if conceived with enough attention to detail and crafted beautifully enough (the pleasure being in the angle, the feel to the touch or the curve or choice of colour) while simultaneously reflecting that crucial tone of authenticity.

Lighting takes on an industrial bias in the fittings to echo the raw appeal but low hanging lamps provide clear vistas onto key product groupings so that the overall effect is refreshingly warm and bright.

To the sides of the store are individual ‘sub rooms’ – which house seasonal merchandise, fashion product and accessories in addition to the core denim proposition. Again in reference to The Future Laboratory’s ‘Less is More’ directive this is to emphasise denim as the true brand hero but also serves to salute the clever buying choices of the Just Jeans team – positioning these additional (but much smaller quantities of products) as carefully edited pieces to complement but not overshadow the denim collection. At the very rear of the store is the final section in a distinctive white and neutral palette with a lowered canopy skylight, sleek black and steel rails and clear bright lighting, serving a beacon to pull the consumer to the final recesses of the flagship.