The changing retail landscape has been a boon for concept stores. That millennial retail juggernaut, which brought an experiential aspect and curatorial edge to shopping, is especially important today for our struggling high streets. The brands that adopt and refine the proven model — think Dover Street Market, Alex Eagle and 10 Corso Como, where design, food and events interact at one show-stopping brick-and-mortar destination — are winning at street level.
Entering the chat this week is Plan C, the Italian fashion brand founded by Marni scion and tastemaker Carolina Castiglioni. Her new two-storey Milan flagship is designed with modularity and flexibility at its core, so its layout can be reconfigured for special exhibitions, pop-ups and parties under the umbrella Plan C Frame. Castiglioni developed the space in collaboration with creative production house April and Milan architects (Ab)Normal as a series of niches defined by customised materials and bold colours, so that the fashion folds seamlessly into the cultural offering.
‘The goal was to create a vibrant space that was easy to transform and bring to life different projects,’ says Castiglioni. ‘The choice of materials and colours perfectly reflects the image of the brand, but it’s not self-referential.’
On the ground floor is a succession of cocoon-like rooms in deep claret-red and pale green, delineated by angular walls and geometric portals. These rooms host the label’s ready-to-wear and accessories, along with the first retail space of Italian jeweller Aliita, helmed by Carolina’s sister-in-law Cynthia Vilchez Castiglioni. A spiral staircase in pillar-box red leads down into a yellow-carpeted library and event space managed for Plan C Frame by the local independent magazine Reading Room.
Exclusive to the space, Plan C will unveil a capsule homewares collection developed in collaboration with Belgian specialist Serax, maker of Valerie Objects. The exclusivity is part of the allure of the concept store… concept. As is the rotating cultural programme, inaugurated with a show of ink works and screen prints by German illustrator Christoph Niemann, well known for his New Yorker covers. All these elements will work together in the service of Castiglioni wider vision, ‘a rethinking of retail as a place for exchange, imagination and cross-disciplinary creativity’.
