Retail consultant, Dana Armstrong, invited Elemental to work with her and Twenty Twenty, on Hobbycraft’s new store concept. Twenty Twenty came up with a re-brand and a new store concept. Elemental were asked to add on contemporary and theatrical VM and display elements, to enhance the customer experience. Hobbycraft’s Marketing Director, Lisa Looker, and Dana gave us their valued input throughout the process. The first store-opening was Orpington, where we felt truly proud of being part of the successful retail transformation.
April_Original Penguin
Original Penguin asked Elemental to design, produce and install an Easter-themed window at the Covent Garden flagship. The window displayed bespoke Original Penguin bunting, with brightly painted garden furniture, tea pots, cups and saucers, with painted eggs, to produce an Easter Garden Party. Tiny fluffy chicks added some wit.
April_Maison Martin Margiela
To mark the first anniversary of Maison Martin Margiela’s fragrance, "Untitled”, for L’Oreal, Elemental Design came up with another striking in-store display at Selfridges. Taking reference from the actual fragrance bottle, we designed and produced a merchandiser in the shape of giant bottle in Perspex. Adding the distinctive, white, Margiela props, like stacked luggage, ladders and easel, as well as bell jars and ostrich feathers, the festive touch was a bunch of silver, number "1” birthday balloons.
March_Penhaligons
With the Royal Wedding in the air, many retailers celebrated the exciting event. As a warranted retailer to the Royal family, Penhaligons gave us a starting point of "bunting” to develop and produce windows for their UK stores, and their stores in Paris, Milan and New York. To capture the mood of the country, at this jubilant time, Elemental Design created a kit of parts, including Union Jack bunting, paper chains and ribbon trims. The muted water-colour palette, using ivory, crimson and teal evoked a vintage flavor to the scheme.
March_Christian Dior
The Christian Dior team briefed Elemental Design to produce window displays for their Nautical 2011 campaign, throughout their UK stores. Our workshop set about sculpting wooden quays, mooring posts and spools, from polystyrene, which were paint-effected to appear windswept and worn. Adding nautical rope and tranquil blue backdrops, against a gloss, black floor, the desert island windows set sail.
February_Mulberry
London Fashion Week has come and gone once again, and this season Elemental Design were commissioned by Mulberry to source, produce and install an English country garden in the ballroom at Claridges, complete with hillocks, trees, oversized mushrooms and moss-a-plenty. Elemental took creative direction from Mulberry's Visual Merchandising department, which allowed the brief to come to life.
Large scale walls were installed, and a team of handy green fingered assistants applied real foliage and flowers, creating rich and vibrant vertical gardens for press photographs and for the catwalk show.
A shed was constructed, with the Mulberry logo applied in various media, including scorched wood and rusty nails. Glue guns at the ready, the Mulberry team added hundreds of colourful birds to the trees with excitement, creating a magical woodland.
After a long day of pinning, flower arranging and hanging off tall ladders, Colin and Alan (the furry foxes) were placed lovingly by the Mulberry team amongst the fun, oversized mushrooms and on the roof of the shed. The final touches were then added, and the catwalk was painted for the final time before the big show.
February_Penhaligons
One of our briefs for this year’s Valentine’s Day came from Penhaligons. The elegant English fragrance brand briefed Elemental to design and produce window displays for all their UK and Paris stores. Keeping it chic and delicate, Elemental Design installed a cord, feather, ribbon and tassel back drop, complimented by fringe plinth covers, to create a romantic and slightly burlesque ambience to Penhaligons boutiques.
January_L'Artisan
L’Artisan the iconic French perfumery house, approached Elemental to design a window scheme that could be sent out to their fourteen stores in France and London to launch their new fragrance "Les Jardins Secrets” and also their new website. We designed and produced a garden backdrop out of foamex that was illustrative and vibrant to reflect the secret garden, where the merchandise was seen to "grow” out of the garden, through the use of plinths. We also created a hanging kit where the foamex garden could dangle from the ceiling to add to the in-store garden effect.
January_Maison Martin Margiela
After the success of the launch of Maison Martin Margiela’s fragrance "Untitled” for L’Oreal at Selfridges last March, Elemental Design were approached again by L’Oreal to produce and install the same campaign in Dublin’s famous department store, Brown Thomas. Creating the in-store and the windows displays, Elemental Design emulated the original Selfridges display, which included the famous Margiela handwriting of books, chairs, feathers, old luggage, quill pens and wine bottles, in the fashion house’s signature white paint, that were then placed throughout the store and windows.
