Square Footage
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3,250 S.F. Retail Space |
Program/Scope
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Tenant improvement for a high-end Italian line of jeans and other clothes and accessories. The target market is affluent young women. This location in South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, represents Sixty’s first store in the western United States. |
Budget / Construction Cost
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$550,000 |
Unusual Characteristics
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The Sixty clothing chain has a preexisting aesthetic based on the design work of Verner Panton. The store wished to project an image born of the optimistic mid-20th century that also leans towards the futuristic. |
Special Challenges
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This project is located in one of the smaller lease spaces in the mall. The client has greater than usual retail storage needs for two reasons. Because the clothing comes from Italy, it is shipped in larger quantities and must be stored until it is ready for the floor. Because Sixty is a high-end line, less merchandise is displayed at one time than other stores might show. |
Solution
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Finish materials figured importantly in the design of the store. As in Panton’s work, color and rounded shapes predominate the look. The general ambience is upbeat: brightly lighted, shiny, color-saturated casework, pearlescent and vibrantly -colored flooring, and stainless steel mirror the seamless, buoyant 1960’s style. The design team wished to introduce an element that would be unique to the store. This comes in the form of a serpentine shape that pushes down into the vinyl ceiling from above. This shape is extrapolated to two dimensions at the curvilinear floor material break below. The dressing rooms (camarinis) are translucent white spandex stretched taut over a stainless steel armature of concentric rings. There is a freestanding mirror, bench and clothing hook assembly inside for the customer’s use. Each camarini is suspended independently from the structure above and hung through the vinyl ceiling. The massive stainless steel door is a play on the usual function of the front door: during store hours the two center hinged doors close into each other and when the store is closed, the doors "open" to seal off the entrance. Creating hidden rollout units within the casework alleviated storage problems. Full-height, moveable storage units were employed in the rear storage area to optimize floor space. |
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