Fornarina

Specialty Retailer, sales area 1500 to 3000 sq. ft.
First Place (Tie) and Store of the Year
Fornarina Mandalay Place, Las Vegas
Giorgio Borruso, Marina del Rey, Calif.

Fornarina, a relative newcomer to U.S. fashion retailing, was named the 2004 Store of the Year in the 34th annual Institute of Store Planners/VM+SD International Store Design Competition.

Architect Giorgio Borruso (Marina del Rey, Calif.), another relative newcomer to U.S. retail, designed the award-winning project, in Mandalay Place, intended to be a peaceful oasis in the Las Vegas bustle.

Borruso, trained in Italy, came to the United States in 1998 and has worked with such American retailers as Miss Sixty and Paul Frank. Fornarina, an Italian shoe and apparel retailer, has stores throughout Europe and in China, but had only one previous U.S. store, on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles.

“We broke the mold in Las Vegas,” says Borruso. “It's an aggressive, risk-taking place, and so we did things here Fornarina has never done before.”

Judges responded to the store's wildly innovative use of shapes and materials, colors and textures.

Throughout Europe, in China and in its one previous U.S. location in Los Angeles, Fornarina had gone for an elegant, understated format in which to present its fashion shoes and apparel.

Architect Giorgio Borruso changed all that for the store's new showplace in Las Vegas, which was named Store of the Year in the 2004 ISP/VM+SD International Store Design Competition.

“Las Vegas is a place that invites risk,” Borruso says. “It challenges you to do something different.”

Borruso's design for Fornarina was certainly different, a departure from any of the retailer's other stores. He created a tactile experience full of organic forms and shapes, hypnotizing colors, surrealism, sensuality and a sense of movement. But the overall sensation is restful and soothing.

“Our objective was to create an oasis inside the chaotic bustle of the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino,” says Borruso, “a place of rest for the retina and the mind, a place to retire and feel comfortable.”

The unusual blends with the expected. So the rich complex shapes offer clear and concise merchandise presentations, such as the perfectly circular shoe platforms inside organic silicon oval elements; or the smooth, tactile surfaces in cool pearlescent colors. The undulating floor, created from custom-made textured vinyl, produces what Borruso regards as an “oneiric,” dreamy experience. And the unusual lighting elements hanging from the ceiling – what Borruso calls “tentacles” – support grids of directional lights and LED color effects that turn the store a moody red once a day.

Even the signature Fornarina fuchsia, dominant in its other stores, becomes an accent color in Borruso's design.

Client: Fornari USA, Los Angeles
Sergio Azzolari, ceo
Edward Kangeter, vp
Adrienne Weller, director of communications, visual merchandising

Design and Architecture: Giorgio Borruso, Marina del Rey, Calif.

General Contractor: Fineline Group, San Francisco

Lighting: North Shore Consulting, San Francisco

Architect-of-Record: Gensler, San Francisco

Flooring: Lonseal, Carson, Calif.

Furniture and Fixtures: T. Alongi, Montreal

Fiberglass/Resin: BamBam Designs, City of Industry, Calif.

Tentacles/Fabric Dressing Room: Eventscape Inc., Toronto

Door Handles: PRL Glass Systems, City of Industry, Calif.

Signage and Graphics: Y.E.S., Las Vegas

Photography : Benny Chan/Footworks, Los Angeles