Yorkdale
Toronto
When presented this project, the first reaction was… really, a mall? Most of the stores which James had worked on for Club Monaco were what we called “street stores”; these were more authentic and had a natural connection with the community. So, it was decided to treat this location, which clocked in at a rather large 5000 square feet like it was an outdoor location.
The store was to house both men’s and women’s collections and we decided to take the nod from the recently completed projects and treat them as two different stores - each had its own palette of materials, colours and design codes; we even went as far as creating two different store fronts - the men’s would be more angular and painted darker, while the women’s would be soft and light.
In the interior of the store, we decided to go for it with the details. The men’s area had a paneled entry in a warm oak, a painted floor diamond pattern, and a fabric covered ceiling. The main room focus was the “bar” which functioned as our cash desk - complete with
vintage stools and a leather topped desk. We also collected ephemera from around the world to help make it feel special - the scientific 3-D models of the birth of a frog were carried back from London in James’ suitcase, the mid-century model of a home (which we hung on the wall in the first room) was found in a thrift shop in Los Angeles and the framed vintage house numbers were found while on an installation in Beijing. For the store opening, the men’s window held over 25 vintage Hubley Boston terrier doorstops which we sold.
The women’s area was to be a total contrast - traditional architecture and moldings paired with soft modern tones of grey. Our painter actually thought we had made a mistake when he saw the number of colours and finishes.
The result was a space which went above the normal mall location and set the stage on how we would look at further similar locations which we went on to develop for the Asian markets.
