The ‘retail apocalypse’, a technology-driven blight, is leaving ailing high streets and zombie malls in its wake. Amazon, Alibaba and other e-commerce players, large and small, have transformed shopping into a sofa-based scroll and shoot. Well that’s what the headlines say. But this trail of disruption is not indiscriminate. You can outsmart it and outmaneuver it, even if that sometimes requires a speculative trip to Mars.
Late last year, SKP, China’s leading luxury department store operator, opened SKP-S, a smaller though still sizeable satellite to its brand-rich Beijing mothership. The new store’s ground-floor window display features a wide-screen tableau, not of designer desirables, but of nodding electric sheep and comic book heroic space farmers, buffeted by solar winds. The ‘future farm’ installation – the work of tyro South Korean eyewear brand Gentle Monster – continues inside. Where you might expect the heady scent and bustling aisles of the beauty department, sheep are being cloned on clinically clean production lines.
By the time you get to the store’s third floor, heading skywards on infinity escalators, you are through the airlock of an apparently long-established Martian outpost where veteran terraformers pass on advice to their identical clones; landing modules and Martian buggies are parked up in red dirt; and a dome, apparently 3D-printed in the same Martian dust (actually painstakingly formed in gypsum concrete), offers views of our solar system and beyond (rendered by Australian studio Artists in Motion). There are also Nike trainers, Champion sweatshirts and Swatch watches, but they are housed in alcoves offa 2001: A Space Odyssey-style dichroic glass tunnel.
Denne historien er fra March 2020-utgaven av Wallpaper.
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Denne historien er fra March 2020-utgaven av Wallpaper.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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POLE POSITION
A compact Melbourne house with a small footprint is big on efficiency and experimentation
URBAN OASIS
At an art-filled Mexico City residence, New York designer Giancarlo Valle has put his own spin on the country's traditional craft heritage
WARM FRONT
Designer Clive Lonstein elevates his carefully curated Manhattan home with rich textures and fabrics
BALCONY SCENE
A Brazilian island hotel offers a unique approach to the alfresco experience
ENSEMBLE CAST
How architect Anne Holtrop is leaving his mark on the Middle East
Survival mode
A new show looks at preparing for a post-apocalyptic landscape (and other catastrophes)
FLASK FORCE
A limited-edition perfume collaboration between two Spanish craft masters says it with flowers
BLOOM SERVICE
A flower-shaped brutalist beauty in Geneva gets a refresh
SECOND NATURE
A remodelled museum in Lisbon, by Kengo Kuma & Associates, meshes Japanese and Portuguese influences to create a space that sits in harmony with its surroundings
Guiding light
Designer Joe Armitage follows his grandfather's footsteps in India, reissuing his elegant midcentury lamp and creating a new chandelier for Nilufar Gallery