The Rest Will Follow

It's a blustery day in the city... or not quite.  So my pieces that keep driving the idea conceptually are:

• my product: high fashion meets practical sophistication :: trench coats and attaches, etc.
• the cloudy day
• the street scape: specifically power lines, street lines, electrical towers, light poles

How do these products relate to one another?  Trench coats are symbolic for so many things.

They are iconic.  Think James Bond, Jackie O, Prince Charles, Carry Grant, Carrie Bradshaw.

They are sexy.  Think James Bond, Jackie O, Carry Grant, Carrie Bradshaw.

They are mysterious.  One one hand people wear them to make a statement.  And on the other people wear them to blend into the crowd.  They cover everything, and in a way have become a symbol for covering what's underneath.  They are a requirement for every good P.I.

They are also practical, they protect you from the elements.  Walk down the street on a blustery day in New York and everyone has one.  And what else are they all carrying? A breifcase- or today- a laptop case.  

So that's why I have chosen these two products to go together.  The same market that might purchase a trench coat, might also purchase a fine breifcase or designer pen.

And the idea is to have items for people to browse through and look at.  Also, the merchandise would change fairly frequently throughout the seasons so that there is a limited amount of product on display at one time.

The cloudy day seems to work so seemlessly with the product as well.  You can imagine a person, man or woman, rushing down the streets of downtown on a cold, blustery day on the way to a business meeting.  From the looks of it, Greensboro most certainly has a fashion-conscious business class and they like to look good - even on a rainy day, from head to toe, car to car keys.  It's about the details.

I want the store to reflect this type of atmosphere.  Kind of gritty city on an overcast day.  One thing I love about an overcast day is that the light is very diffuse.  That indirect light seems to help keep colors outside in intense saturation, and it's so beautiful.  I also like the idea of power lines and street lamps.  If you've ever tried to go out and take pictures of the suburban landscape, you're constantly trying to frame a view without powerlines in it.  In this case I want to celebrate the beauty of the banal and make it work to establish a mood.

The Revolution Mills is formerly very industrial.  I can see how this shop would fit well into the context by keeping exposed a lot of the existing materials and adding in new reused materials that speek about the streetscape.  A couple ideas for new, reused materials are steel- creating a few space dividers, or floor to ceiling fixtures inspired by the electrical tower. Very rectilinear, but also very formulaic and easily recognizable.  In a way the trench coat is the same way.  There are a million different variations, but they are all based on the same formula.

I have a distinct idea for thew way I want the lighting to feel.  I want to screen the natural lighting, which in my shop would be at the back of the store, or use it strategically to draw your eye to an otherwise concealed portion of the store - perhaps behind a screen or mesh.  Then I want to back light a single trench coat in a wall display.  Maybe there are a few iterations of this on one wall. I would propose to backlight it with very diffuse light that also would help to spill into the space and remove the need for overhead lighting.  Then, I would like to use embedded floor lights- like the ones you see on the outside of buildings, illuminating the facade, to create gently washed, hot spots on the front of the coat.  I want to uplight the structural metallic fixtures in the space as well as you often see electrical towers uplit.  

I want the thin, slightly sagging lines of the power line to be pervasive in the space.  I can see a wall system, made of taught line on which wooden or aluminum portfolio binders hang.  Perhaps there is a slightly canted (like a podium) style midfloor fixture that features five or six of these folios laying flat on the surface.  Maybe there are a set of thin elastic bands that the folios slip under.  It's an element that is both functional and aesthetic.

I also want to maximize my window display.  I like the idea of this being the place where on my large slanted wall I can create an interior environment for my manequins by employing the metal electrical tower-like structure that curves over them.  Spot lights like on a movie set - or maybe lamp posts or maybe a custom light fixture like one of those on the end of the long, overhanging lamp posts can spot light the product.  It could be really cool to have this be the one place where the light slighty flickers on and off like a street lamp, sporatically and barely imperceptible atleast to the shoppers outside so that they have to do a double take to see if the light really flickers on and off or not.  This might be a bit gimmicky.  It only works on the shopper once, but I think it could be interesting and add to the authenticity.

Much of my inspiration for the store in terms of lighting contrasts that maintain a high level of sophistication is the flagship store for the french label L'Eclaireur.  It however encorporates alot of warm tones in its design.  I would like use LED lighting, which gives off a cooler light than incandescant (sp?).  I think I will stray away from using the very blue looking LEDs and try to encorporate some of the newer LED technology which has been able to eliminate much of that blue essence.  Nevertheless, I do want to use dark greys and Payne's grays, hints of a midnight blue and white.  Much of my inspiration or color and texture will come from my photographs of the street and sky that I took.  I would also like to encorporate the photography into the graphics of the space, especially the images of the lamp posts and the sky- they are slighty ethereal and menacing.  

I don't want this space to feel harsh, subversive or frightening.  I want it to feel moody and somewhat edgy, like how you might feel on a cloudy day.  I always seek solitude on a cloudy day- it just brings the introvert out in me.  In a way, I think I can psychologically use this to my advantage and play up how the product, the trench and the attaches/folios are about expressing your inner self, your individuality, or maybe even your somewhat darker alter ego.  Just take a look at myspace and you'll get a glimpse into how popular the idea of the sexy, alter ego is. 

The main thing I struggle with is how this store will remain fresh throughout the seasons.  I need to be able to sell the product Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall.  I think I can accomplish this with music and by making the lighting and the colors of the panels behind the trench coat display (I can't help but imagine resin) to be able to change.  Maybe this is something I can do by using a colorless and cloudy resin and making it into a removable panel behind which I can put a color gel in front of the light or install a big, bold graphic on a huge transparency.