Inside Jil Sander’s lovely new London retailer, an train in texture and distinction

Lucie and Luke Meier’s imaginative and prescient for Jil Sander has been one in all good style, precision and restraint, enlivened by prospers of sudden adornment or poetic moments of handcraft. ‘[There’s] a pleasant stress between one thing very genuine, conventional, however then, skewed in a really fashionable approach,’ Luke Meier informed Wallpaper* final February. Then, he was speaking in regards to the model’s A/W 2023 assortment, although it’s a assertion that would apply to the pair’s method to their tenure to this point. 

Such is the definitely the case for the pair’s new Jil Sander retailer, situated on London’s Bond Avenue, which first opened in November 2023, although was inaugurated with a collection of occasions final week. Conceived in partnership with Casper Mueller Kneer – an architectural observe with a wealthy historical past of collaboration on the design of vogue shops with manufacturers together with Saint Laurent, Celine and Lemaire – the shop guarantees an ‘intimate’ journey into the Meiers’ Jil Sander universe, and is as meticulous and considerate because the pair’s collections. 

Inside Lucie and Luke Meier’s new Jil Sander retailer in London

‘We reached out and the preliminary assembly we had was simply an change, which I believe is the best way we begin something we do, whether or not it’s an architectural venture, or collections,’ says Luke Meier of collaborating with the architects. ’They have been acquainted with Jil Sander and there was simply an understanding on either side, which all the time makes issues transfer quicker.’ A lot of this course of was intuitive, provides Lucie Meier, who says the shop’s aesthetic – the primary of a brand new idea, which can proceed with a brand new outpost in Ginza, Tokyo later within the yr – emerged from ’an inspiration board, the place we accumulate concepts, or supplies we get impressed by.’

Certainly, materiality is on the coronary heart of the venture. Stone is the first component of the shop’s development, with flooring, partitions and a staircase main all the way down to the basement flooring hewn from travertine marble, some with geometric scored surfaces, others left with the fabric’s extra pure undulating textures. ’The orientation of the veins, the continuation or disruption of patterns, it’s actually a textural method, however with out overbearing the area,’ explains architect Olaf Kneer, who’s co-founder of Casper Mueller Kneer alongside Marianne Mueller. ‘The fantastic thing about this specific travertine is that in these couple of blocks of stone we discovered plenty of blue, which is one thing fairly uncommon in that it nearly feels synthetic.’

Mueller provides that stone surfaces are an answer to the truth that the contents of the shop will change season on season, and even week on week (the architects notice that the merchandise presently on show are pretty monochrome, however that there are sometimes daring prospers of color within the Meiers’ collections). ‘It supplies a setting for the product to actually be within the foreground,’ she says. ’[There is] a slight roughness to it, which supplies the area an nearly geological high quality, as if it’s been carved from a single piece.’

‘I believe that‘s the problem – it’s a very evolving setting, as a result of every thing modifications always, [whether] color, texture, materials,’ provides Luke Meier. ‘So in a approach, the presentation of all of it has to face up it doesn’t matter what occurs in right here. All of us loved this of creating one thing not essentially homogenous, however one thing that felt like one thought, slightly than a mishmash of various surfaces.’

An inspiration for this method was Carlo Scarpa, the Italian modernist architect who was greatest identified for his monolithic marble and stone interventions in Venice. ‘I believe he got here up within the conversations about materiality, greater than something; we spoke just a little bit about his water drainage methods in Venice, and the concepts of various ranges [of stone],’ says Luke Meier. Mueller provides that Scarpa is evoked in ’conceptual concepts’ slightly than something extra formal, ’a collection of statements that run throughout the shop ranges, the concepts of ranges and horizons – that grew to become actually vital in interested by the area.’

‘In a approach, it’s how we work with material,’ says Luke Meier. ‘As a result of you are able to do every kind of issues with one fibre. It’s simply actually the way you deal with it, the way you end it, the way you spin it out; the construction, the weaving, the brushing.’

Pictures of artists’ studios, notably within the smooth interaction of sunshine and floor, have been additionally a part of the inspiration for the area. A concentrate on small particulars, in the meantime – Lucie Meier factors out the gently curved fringe of the marble shelving on the basement flooring – is designed to mirror the pair’s Jil Sander collections, which frequently reveal their development solely when off the hanger and onto the physique. ‘We felt like we wanted to complement the area with little particulars, as a result of that felt vital within the language of Jil Sander,’ says Mueller, noting that it units the area aside from being one thing monolithic, to one thing extra intimate. ‘They’re perhaps particulars you don’t see in the event you aren’t in search of them,’ says Lucie Meier. ’However the accumulation of all of them provides it a special really feel,’ provides Luke Meier.

Certainly, regardless of the coolness of the fabric, the shop itself manages to retain a temper of intimacy – a mirrored image of the Meiers’ persevering with need to shift the typically austere connotations of Jil Sander in direction of one thing softer, extra poetic. ’I believe the very last thing we wished is an intimidating retailer,’ says Lucie Meier. ‘We would like folks to remain some time; to benefit from the area. I believe that’s why upstairs we wished to divide the area with volumes [of marble] to divide the area to create extra non-public moments, slightly than one massive area the place you are feeling uncovered.’

As for what looks like a seamless luxurious retail renaissance – only a few doorways down, Gucci not too long ago revealed an infinite new retailer set in a transformed artwork gallery, alongside quite a few new openings and renovations within the space – the Meiers notice that their very own need to open a retailer like this centres on a wish to construct a tangible world for his or her shopper to get misplaced in. ’I don’t suppose on-line purchasing can ever substitute the sensation of being inside a retailer – it’s in regards to the expertise,’ says Lucie Meier.