Raleigh Limited Menswear

When Raleigh Limited Menswear decided to gut and remodel its lone Keystone Crossing location in Indianapolis, designers spotted a strategic advantage: The 6000-square-foot store had both a mall storefront and an exterior entrance, so shoppers were using Raleigh as their direct pathway to enter the mall.

“The middle of our store is almost like an atrium, so people used it as an entrance and exit,” says owner Mark Koplow. “We saw an opportunity to get these shoppers to stop, look and take note of what was going on in the store. The pathway was changed so people would be forced to follow the flooring and take a tour through the store.”

To slow down customers as they rushed through the store, designers created a hard surface drive aisle using dark wood planking, overlapped with gold-veined white marble and warm quartzite stone tile. These three materials appear alternately in horizontally overlapping planes to encourage meandering.

“We came up with a design concept for the entire store called 'Techno-Zen,'” says Peter Macrae, who at the time was consulting principal for the project with Retail Design Group Architecture, Columbus, Ohio. (Macrae is now a principal with TRIAD Architects, Columbus.) “That means using a palette of colors and materials that are rich, warm and of the earth, but detailing, fastening and putting them together in a very high-tech, minimalist fashion.”

Designers used carpeted areas within the serpentine drive aisle and perimeter walls to create the feeling of intimate shop-in-shop ideas for different types of men's apparel and accessories.

Koplow felt his company's 30th anniversary was the opportune time to undertake a renovation. As the only specialty store in the area to offer high-end men's apparel, it needed to reach beyond its loyal clientele with a brand refreshment. “Our store had had a very mature customer base for quite some time,” says Koplow, “but we were looking to attract a younger market. To do that, we needed to update our look. I also wanted an elegant environment, because that's what we base our brand on.”

Shoppers are meant to begin experiencing the Zen environment as they proceed into the store from either entrance. The exterior entry hallway introduces the entire palette of materials used in the store, and is reinforced with minimalist display face-outs and ensemble presentations within full-height wooden cabinets. In between the cabinets, red accent walls – also used in the interior accent palette – feature either duotone Zen Garden photography or oversized fashion photography provided by one of Raleigh Limited's apparel manufacturers.

“The lowest part of the ceiling is at the entry doors, and as you walk toward the store the ceiling steps up,” says Macrae. “This sequence is reinforced through the use of colored, stepped ceiling planes that open up progressively as the customers proceed toward the interior sales floor. They are then confronted by a freestanding, tri-mannequin display of feature merchandise.”

Similar devices are employed at the mall entry, but the intimate hallway experience is reinterpreted as an open foyer with numerous windows featuring suspended graphics panels, floor-mounted busts and full-height mannequins.

Inside, the store includes areas for suits, shirts, accessories, shoes, casual apparel, jackets and slacks. Designers also incorporated the latest Zegna vendor shop in a corner off the drive aisle, which contains internally illuminated floor fixtures and wall cabinets faced in wood veneers.

Custom fixtures are throughout the store, including an armoire to display belts, a vertical tie display, pants racks, lockable glass-encased merchandisers and floor platforms for folded apparel. All fixtures are finished in exotic anigre and zebra wood veneers, detailed in a modern way to reinforce the edgy sophistication inherent in the store's design theme. Mounted white panels appear along various columns for single-ensemble presentations.

According to Macrae, the main challenge was to make sure the featured and bulk product placement was all highlighted while simultaneously keeping the store intimate and relaxing with indirect soft lighting. To help accomplish this, custom chandeliers resembling paper lanterns appear over the cashwrap and at the inside of both entrances. “We also added suspended ceiling 'clouds,'which is the 3-D representation of the overlapping planes concept,” says Macrae. “The perimeter floating soffits all have concealed fluorescent uplighting to reinforce the fact that they're hovering.”

Chute Gerdeman (Columbus, Ohio) handled the visual merchandising aspects of the store. To reinforce the brand expression, a sophisticated collection of Asian pottery, modern candles, wall-mounted bud vases and frosted-glass statuary was used. With the incorporation of Zen-styled art, artifacts, plants and flower arrangements with ornamental stones, the “Techno-Zen” theme was complete.

According to Koplow, the store's loyal base of customers has embraced the new environment, while an emerging affluent younger market has been drawn in as well.

Client: Raleigh Limited Inc., Indianapolis – Mark Koplow, owner

Design: Retail Design Group Architecture Inc., Columbus, Ohio – Peter Macrae, consulting principal

Outside Consultants: Chute Gerdeman, Columbus, Ohio – Nicole Vachow, visual merchandiser (visual merchandising); Wiedenbach-Brown Co. Inc., Delaware, Ohio (lighting design); HBK Consultants Ltd., Westerville, Ohio (plumbing, mechanical and electrical engineers); Lantz, Jones & Nebraska Inc., Columbus, Ohio (structural engineer); Hilliard-Kosene, Indianapolis (general contractor)

Suppliers: Action Group Inc., Blacklick, Ohio (fixture/graphics fabricator); TapeEase, Maribel, Wis. (fixture veneers); B&L Westbury, Westbury, N.Y., Constantine Carpet, Dalton, Ga., Ruckstuhl USA Ltd., Newtown Square, Pa. (carpeting); PermaGrain Products, Newtown Square, Pa. (wood flooring); Mannington Commercial, Calhoun, Ga. (vinyl tile); Johnsonite, Chagrin Falls, Ohio (vinyl base); IMC, Dallas (yellow quartzite stone tile); Weiss & Bihelles, New York (stone); Advance Screen Printing, Gahanna, Ohio (graphics printing); Atlas Sign Co., Indianapolis (signage); Con-Tech, Northbrook, Ill., Simkar Corp., Philadelphia, Elco Lighting, Vernon, Calif. (light fixtures); Porter Coatings, Louisville, Ky. (paint); Kawneer, Norcross, Ga. (paint, aluminum mullions, glass)

John Evans, J.E. Evans Photography, Galena, Ohio