Luxury Fashion Walking Down The Lane Of Hyperphysical Trend
As the world is pacing up with trends and fashion patterns, hyperphysical stores are painting a bigger and brighter picture of fashion and engagement. Touching up the image of the brand and reinforcing their connection with the audience, these retails and pop-ups are making sensational ripples in the deep sea of the fashion universe. Entangled with creativity, it is creating a change of how one perceives an engaging marketing and giving a way to innovation with progress.
(Picture source: The Spaces)
Last summer, Balenciaga bathed the displays and fixtures of its London Mount Street store with bright squishy, soft and shaggy pink faux fur. The wall-to-floor fluffy pink extravaganza deck-up renovated the Le Cagole, the maximalist 'It-bag' pop-up retail. Immersing their customers into the vibrant and gentle sensory vibe tied up with such an avant-garde design. An aesthetic affair that hangs around with the swirl of their bags too. Kim Kardashian wore that pink furry handbag in one of their campaigns.
Even Dior surfed on these hyperphysical trend waves with its colossal and metallic mesh structured pop-up retail open for three years in Seoul. A majestic greenhouse-esque complex embedded with a café, boutique and garden, one that plants a historic and imperial impression, in the eyes of the gazers.
Sound hyperphysical retail invariably creates a splash of fresh and fruitful fascination among people, especially the young generation. It makes them step out of the metaverse and walk into a diverse dimension, one that ripples with the tangible experiences of brand uniqueness, colour and conceptual interior. In fact, luxury stores and branded pop-up retail with pristine window displays, ambient lighting and a pleasant welcoming smell tailor a memorable experience for the consumers as well as reinforce the connection between them and the brand. “The thing is, I don’t want to be sold to when I walk into a store. I want to be welcomed”, said Angela Ahrendts, the former SVP of Retail, at Apple Inc.
Hyperphysical is a new dimension
The hyperphysical stores are breaking the timeworn walls and making new beams of expansion dawning over the luxury world. These physical stores are more than just a place; they are venues with conceptualised and “Instagram-able” interiors where consumers live up to the vision and aesthetic of the brands. Feeling the strong sensory receptors grounded on the five senses viz. The sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste that the physical retail stores radiate paint a treasured rich-coloured, lively and deluxe picture of the brand that stays at the top of the mind of consumers for a long time.
Salvatore Ferragamo’s new Soho concept store unveils an amalgamation of the physical world and the Web3 digital realm, offering consumers a free NFT on exclusive product orders and services. Along with the histrionic design with outsized screen display and animated artwork that definitely makes it an enthralling offline errand, one that falls beyond the metaverse peripheries. This out-of-the-box invention is nothing but a crucial part of the brand strategy that nurtures brand proliferation and internationalisation.
(Picture source: Footwear News )
The post-pandemic era has metamorphosed the notion of luxurious store outlets and flash retailing, with ground-breaking, artistic and innovative conceptualised greatly sought-after designs; especially, offering pleasant and flaunting ambiences that are youth-centric and Gen-Z aesthetic.
Retail experience creates a brand impression
Retail creates a store intimacy for the visitors to engage with the playful lens, socialise, shop, play and feel the brand, which ultimately engraves a sensational experience in their mind, one that fuels up the level of familiarity, preference and reliability of consumers. “My company is an extension of me, so when I designed my stores I wanted people to feel that they were in my home”, claimed Tory Burch, Founder & creative Designer of the brand Tory Burch.
In the Autumn-Winter 2018-2019 Paris Fashion Week, Merci with its pink-tinted, hybrid-coloured bubble gum pop-up store brought the 'La Vie En Rose' theme back to life. Flushed with the candy pastel, fuchsia, magenta and more, it was a cheerful celebration of shades of pink, one that textures like a paradise as soft as feathers and far away as a dreamland. Such artistic creations end up weaving a pronounced and high profile of the brand among the people. That’s what inspires the luxurious brands to go hyperphysical, to build a homelike connection with the consumers and fashion an impression that gets etched on history. "Brands are forced to rethink not just the format, location and permanence of their stores but it also begs the question of how to measure their value when you can no longer use sales as a single success metric. It requires brands to look at the full equation," said PWC's Windsor.
(Picture source: Merci Paris)
Some experiences are lived and savoured well as corporeal and that's where these hyperphysical stores win the battle over online technology. And it not only wins the consumers' attraction but also helps in profit maximization.
Glancing at Coach's distinctive and immersive pop-up store in London, this April can disseminate a finer picture of the benefits of flash retailing. Coach brought a pillow tabby installation in London, this April, which was a successful conception of an artistic and enthralling fashion experience for its visitors. Highlighted with the memorable sensory stimulation, it succeeded in making it a relaxed fun visit for the people. As well as, the free space was crafted in such a way that it could be utilized to deliver “further brand heat and momentum”, according to Amber Pepper. It heightened their sales to 140 per cent and during the open weekend, the football rose to 40 per cent in the stores. It did not only attract consumers but also increased sales and at the end of the day it is a happy brand, a satisfied consumer and innovations coming true to reality and giving space for more. And now, Coach is planning to spread its wings in Berlin and Dubai too.
Are physical stores the new marketing strategy?
This omnichannel trend is exploratory and invites ideas that are off the wall. Like Tiffany & Co's blue box pop-up shop, back then in the year 2018 on the West Coast, which was an oversized version of the brand's iconic packaging box. To their recent flash retailing in Paris where the jeweler’s 185-year history is displayed like an exhibition within a room flushed into a golden touch, making its visitors stroll through the timeline of its jewellery pieces marked with archival designs as well as narrating the modern accent of craftsmanship. Tiffany has also swum across an ocean of concepts to create and recreate the image it wanted its customers to live up to.
(Pictures source: Forbes )
(Picture source: Dezeen)
The cool and blue splashy ambience trickling through the jacquemus's pop-up store at London, selfridges is making a wave of sensational modishness. A tranquil creation of a bathroom, jumping straight out of the designer Simon Porte Jacquemus’s imagination, with swimming pools and rooms, scattering enticing and relaxed 3D sensory experiences that makes the visitors dive deep into the pleasing and placid feelings. One of the surrealist exploratory pop-ups that stands out the peripheries of traditional retails. Even its earlier pop-up stores, the white one in Milan and the pink one in Paris, drew enormous attention towards the brand.
(Picture source: Retail Design Blog Website )
Beyond normality and ahead of conventionality, these hyperphysical stores are crafting new definitions of brand strategies to engage with and entertain the consumers in the world of luxury and fashion. Along with the ingenious, imaginative and quirky flashes of ideas, these pop-ups and retail offer a fresh spin on inventive and innovative formulas. A potential one can take the brand all around the world and keep the consumers enthralled and connected. These physical stores are shaking up the minds with vibrant & sensational change and making people plunge into an exhilarating and animated experience that lasts forever. Moreover, this above-average and cool trend might not be just a fad or fashion. But a complete outset of captivating marketing shooting the audience with the intriguing and thrilled-filled ideas. This long haul trend crafts an indelible impression in the visitor’s minds that is hard to rinse off and can be the leading light for a brand's success.
