Manolo Blahnik - Enigma Boutique Department Store
Furniture, Retail / Tel Aviv / November 2011 / 400 sqm
The Enigma Store extension added approximately 400 sqm of retail space to this existing Tel Aviv boutique department store, a specialist supplier of luxury brands such as Dior and Gucci. The city is renowned for the quality and quantity of its Bauhaus-era modernist architecture, and the new store components reference these austere but elegant façades. In particular, the display shelves were influenced by the functional positive and negative forms of Bauhaus design, while another inspiration was the landscape and rock formations of the Judean desert, especially its intriguing crystal geodes.
The result is a shoe gallery and evening wear department that is simultaneously clean and neutral but also sculpturally intriguing, with clothes and shoes displayed within negative space as if sparkling gems uncovered from the geological strata of the new store.