Australian fashion retailer, Sportsgirl has engaged global design studio, Landini Associates to transform its physical store formats.
Sportsgirl’s offer includes cosmetics, accessories and gifting, alongside its clothing business, but these categories were poorly defined in-store and failed Landini Associates’ ‘blindfold test’ – a measure of whether a store design has a differentiated visual personality.
The brief was to better articulate these offers, creating destinations of clarity without reducing SKUs, to distinguish Sportsgirl from mass-market fashion retailers.
Applying its guiding design principle, ‘Reinventing Normal’ (challenging convention and utilising common sense), Landini Associates’ new retail format for Sportsgirl reinvents its category. The new design articulates the brand offer with calm clarity while losing no stock density and delivering operational efficiency.
Departments have been created with makeup, gifting and accessories becoming distinguishable destinations, while clothing is now ordered into collections defined by Sportsgirl’s brand colours.
Landini Associates’ new design emphasises Sportsgirl’s distinctive colour system as signage, reimagining this unique asset into a beacon of beauty. The bold use of colour creates visual recognition and draws customers in with greater visibility. Laying out an ‘open invitation’ the storefront is completely open at the entrance with full height double glazing on the side.
Challenging traditional display methods, wardrobe-like units create a clean, minimalist environment – a marked contrast to the chaotic clutter common of the mass-market fashion category.
The new store layout provides a more enjoyable shopping experience and delivers a unique operating model. The new units effectively frame individual collections, allowing the retailer to style looks within each wardrobe, while losing no stock density. Visual merchandising is now centrally efficient – it can be planned by head-office, designed to fit the store, and implemented with minimal fuss.
landiniassociates.com
Photography by Trevor Mein.