What’s next — Damien Hirst’s bisected
cow in formaldehyde alongside the Wait-
rose cheese counter? “Tracey Emin just
did a show in a newsagents [on Chiltern
Street in Marylebone],” Bryan enthuses,
“and I loved it!”
Someone else who understands the
dance that fashion and art continually
perform with one another is Robert
Diament, director of the Carl Freedman
Gallery in Margate and one half of Talk
Art, a hugely successful podcast he hosts
with the actor Russell Tovey. “I strongly
believe that showing art in new contexts
can be very powerful,” he tells me. “It can be a great way for
new audiences to be introduced to an artist. I have noticed
at our gallery visitors are relishing the chance to get out
and have memorable experiences with art, especially
having been starved of so many social opportunities
during various lockdowns.”
So perhaps the Celine store will become an art destina-
tion in its own right. Time will tell but it’s already fast
becoming the most Instagrammed shop in the capital.
Diament loves the idea of art and fashion fusing to go above
and beyond gallery gift-store merch, combining to form
something altogether more democratic. After all, what’s
more accessible than a non-ticketed high street store? “The
results can be exhilarating and not reduced to pure
commercial opportunity,” Diament says. “Art for everyone!”
A new way of exiting through the gift shop, then, with
Slimane proving, once again, that he is fashion’s true
Renaissance man. ■Brands are
eager to entice
you in, make you
think a little bit
and, sure, pick
up an exquisite
jacket while
you’re there
(The latter is a depiction of youth that
echoes the overall aesthetic loved by
Celine’s creative director, Hedi Slimane —
think Albert Hammond Jr from the Strokes
in oil paint.) It’s an art collection that
wouldn’t look out of place at the Hayward
Gallery or the Saatchi Yates space on
nearby Cork Street.
This is a trend that one might call the
“galleryfication” of the modern fashion
store, where rails of Celine’s beautiful shirts,
bags and tailored suits are bookended by
bold, attention-holding art pieces, many
specially commissioned from a global collec-
tion of dynamic bright young things. “After the period of
lockdowns and social distancing that affected most of 2020,
luxury customers came back to stores with a renewed
interest for in-person experiences,” says Claudia D’Arpizio,
a partner at management consultancy Bain & Company in
Milan and head of the firm’s global luxury division.
For Slimane this is all about making the trip to a store
really, really worth it. After all, if you wanted a simple “click
and collect” shopping experience you could have done
that from the comfort of your well-used sofa. Celine knows
that real luxury for the customer is time, your time, and
the brand is eager to entice you in, make you stop and
think a little bit and, sure, pick up an exquisite wool gabar-
dine jacket while you’re there. Now that shoppers are
venturing out again, brands know a purely transactional
retail experience, buoyed only by a warm glass of cham-
pagne, will no longer cut it.
There’s no doubt retail needs a shot in the arm: amid the
longest spending slump since 1996, more than 8,700 chain
stores closed on British high streets in the first half of this
year — that’s an average of almost 50 shutting a day. Yet in
October there were green shoots: retail sales in the UK
rose for the first time in six months — the total volume up
by 0.8 per cent, according to the Office for National Statis-
tics. Brands such as Gymshark, whose online empire of
sports and leisurewear exploded during the pandemic, are
moving in where legacy retailers have exited — Gymshark
has just taken a huge space on Regent Street (due to open
in 2022, it will be its first physical store). It’s good news,
but brands will be praying that the Omicron variant
doesn’t now cancel Christmas sales.
Whether through art, food or club bangers, the smartest
brands know that design is just the tip of the content
iceberg nowadays. The designer Jonathan Anderson
has been bringing art and craft into Loewe’s shopping
universe for some time now, while earlier this year Browns
added a small, ethical dining experience, Native at
Browns, to its store on Brook Street, a stone’s throw from
Claridge’s. Last month Prada threw a rave — this, the
London edition of a series of global live events named
Prada Extends — in the Tanks at Tate Modern. Clothing
was showcased, while Romeo Beckham, AJ Tracey and the
like mingled with an industry crowd, all listening to music
curated by Richie Hawtin.
“I can see the appeal of art placed next to designer
clothing,” says Kate Bryan, who as head of collections at
Soho House is responsible for curating the artworks on
show across the membership club’s spaces globally. “I think
part of the psychology of buying fine things is what you are
buying into — it’s not [just] an object. I suppose you hope it
will deliver you something, make you better somehow.”
The Sunday Times Style • 33