my Paul Smith Changing Room...

This was one of my favourite projects this year at uni probably because it was a live project for a real competition, our challenge was to design a new changing room for Paul Smith stores. To fully understand this I got in contact with the local Paul Smith store to me, in Nottingham, after granting permission I went into the store to take pictures of the existing changing rooms and the aesthetics of the store in general. The store consisted of traditional pieces of wooden furniture with modern decorative ornament pieces, this then made me realise that the changing needed to stand out from this to be noticed, but at the same time fit in with the existing stores appearance.

Paul Smith store Nottingham

I then went on to look at Paul Smith's blog, where I found he had mentioned liking a designer, her name was Hella Jongerius. After looking at her website I found a product that inspired me, Miroirs Animaux Miroirs Animaux.

curves came into some initial ideas doe this competition too

another starting concept, traditional form, inspiration from a traditionally designed Scandinavian wardrobe

my concept

The layered different sized blocks reminded me of the Mondrian art pieces, from this I then designed a rectangular changing room made out of traditional wood panelling, which is featured heavily in the original Paul Smith store's appearance. On top of this panelling I decided to feature storage blocks in varying shapes and different colours along three sides of the changing room, the door of the changing room being totally covered in different oblong sizes and colours, the door having a special cut out shape matching the overlapping layers. These layers on the door of the changing room consisting of different colours and materials, such as polished metals, mirrors to reflect and exaggerate the stores size and features and LCD screens that have a constantly running slide show of this seasons Paul Smith collection.

my first sketch model, the raised shapes on the door being the LCD screens

showing the cut out design of the door

my first presentation boards for the concept of my design

final design, model showing the alteration of mirrored outside storage blocks with bright colour on the inside

the final design of the door, original cut out shape, mirrored layers and polished metal shapes, one featuring Paul Smith signature indented into the material

inside the changing room, with a light cream interior, full wall length mirror and strip coloured lighting along the length and widths of the walls, carrying on the Mondrian theme

Final presentation boards entered into the Paul Smith Environment Competition

I enjoyed this project so much, especially the element of research, going to the store and talking to the staff assistants and finding out something that Paul Smith genuinely liked via his blog and turning that into a product.