During its heyday in the ’70s and ’80s, the St. Regis Room (now called The Room) at Hudson’s Bay Co. was the place for international apparel in Toronto. And while the exclusive third-floor wing may have kept its fashionable wares through the years, its old-world surroundings were beginning to feel dated.
Toronto-based design firm Yabu Pushelberg was called in to breathe new life and the results are, well, breathtaking, earning it Store of the Year honors in the 2009 Retail Design Institute’s annual International Store Design Competition.
Glenn Pushelberg, founding partner, Yabu Pushelberg, says he wanted to keep the design simple and clear using an artistic approach. “We didn’t want to pack the room full of product,” he says. “The idea was to let it breathe.”
Relying on what Pushelberg describes as basic materials in beautiful ways, The Room now carries a sense of casual luxury with a simple palette of white, polished metal, high-gloss lacquer and glass. Three floor-to-ceiling screens, each featuring different geometric shapes, curve around to create smaller areas for product presentation while still allowing broad vistas throughout the 22,000-square-foot department.
Fused-glass tables, industrial chandeliers and a wall of white subway tiles provide a subtle change of style toward the back of the room, “so it’s not boring and all the same,” says Pushelberg.
That same subtle touch also enlivens two corner areas in The Room. On one side, blue and green floor-to-ceiling curtains and an undulating wall of white ribbons conceal a dressing room, while in the opposite corner, shoes literally shine on a curved wall of internally lit shelves. Above, painted-on panels with antler motifs are one of the few references to the room’s past formality.
By allowing space between the merchandise presentations and editing down the selection, Pushelberg says there’s “more clarity for the shopper and they’re more romanticized.
“You can buy a dress or shoes anywhere,” he adds. “So the point of difference is the experience of it.”
Click through the photos above to see all the winners, including awards of merit, in the 2009 Retail Design Institute’s annual International Store Design Competition.