Mandarina Duck Flagship Store, Paris

date: 2000

Mandarina Duck is an Italian manufacturer and sales company for luggage, clothing and accessories. Droog was commissioned to design their flagship store in Paris and selected NL Architects for the job.

Anyone entering the shop will be surprised by the fact that there is no classic visual uniformity. The unity lies in the ways in which products are displayed and surprising facilities that visitors meet when they are shopping. NL Architects came up with colourful and playful ‘cocoons’.

On the ground floor there’s a tunnel for accessories, a 3,60 diameter floating cloche with a rail inside for clothing and a wall made out of a coloured rubber bands, to put objects behind.

The second floor features, among other things, ‘blister displays’ for ensembles, large fitting rooms behind a forest of glass fibres and a pin-wall with metal pins that can be moved back and forth, to enclose objects on display according to their shape. Between the floors is a motorized spiral staircase.
 

Pallet Tunnel: It’s an object made out of sculputural elements that are normally used for transportation of goods in a compact way: pallets. We made them out of a transluscent plastic in order to illuminate the object as a whole and let the items that are on display hint at their presence. The objective is to enhance a state of desire. The pallets wrap around creating a slightly higher floor in the object thus allowing a slightly different perpective through the shop. Once you’re in the tunnel a more intimate relation with the products is established.

Incubator: The small items display. Normally these objects are behind glass and affection is only established visually. The incubator allows a more sensory experience; you can touch the items, hold them, feel them.