MEN’S SHOP SHOREDITCH
LONDON
This small men’s shop - Club Monaco’s first - was designed and built during the same period as the Sloane Square store. The most important part of the design was the space itself. We spent months looking for spaces; one day our exasperated real estate agent took us to a space in the emerging Shoreditch area on Redchurch Street - the space was at the time a gentleman's workshop who made custom riffles - mainly, as he explained to us- for many of the Middle Eastern royal families. We spent several hours with him as he told us about the neighbourhood and how it had changed. After speaking with him, he decided to rent the space to us with a promise that we would not create “something modern”.
With this promise, we began the design. We took the space back to the shell and left as many existing conditions as possible, using common local materials - white tiles, simple woodworking, and oak plank floors found in warehouses scattered around the neighbourhood. We made a conscious decision to downplay the signage on the front of the store, with “Men’s Shop” as the largest part of the sign and the brand logo in secondary place.
The one notable change was the mezzanine which we created at the back of the store used to house a small tailoring area complete with a small bar, a fireplace and its own fitting room.
When we got on site to start construction, we found a bag of tools which the gentleman had left for us; tools that he had used for decades to create his amazingly crafted works of art. We were so touched that we incorporated them into the design of the store and placed them in pride and place; again respecting the space and the ones that had come before us to help continue the story.
