Designer Views: Floors, Walls & Ceilings Focus
David Collins Studio works with some of the biggest luxury-retail clients in the world. Design director Lewis Taylor
explains why the material mix is the key to success on virtually every project…
Surface and finish details as used by Lewis Taylor’s team at David Collins Studio for its high-end retail clients. Photography - Maxime Brouillet
‘For us surface materials have always been the most important aspect of a project,’ David Collins Studio’s design director Lewis Taylor says. ‘We’re very much hands-on, starting with the sample boards, through to sketching hand-rendered visuals. Whenever we take sample boards to presentations, the clients are always really keen to see and touch these materials, find out what they feel like.
Surface and finish details as used by Lewis Taylor’s team at David Collins Studio for its high-end retail clients. Photography - Maxime Brouillet
It’s the absolute starting point and the most important moment in determining the rest of the project. ‘Working on Harrods’ Shoe Heaven was interesting because it was so vast at 3,900 sq m. As a result we used lots of different materials. On the floors there is timber, inset marble, carpet, and then when you get to the joinery itself there is a wide array of finishes, such as custom wall finishes, and an eggshell laminate that we’ve used on some of the tabletops.
Surface and finish details as used by Lewis Taylor’s team at David Collins Studio for its high-end retail clients. Photography - Maxime Brouillet
When we use these kinds of surfaces it’s to achieve the depth, colour and detail that you wouldn’t otherwise see in more standard materials. ‘For some of the fixtures, we used a heavily textured leather, which really changes its appearance. Added texture like that provides a really interesting backdrop for the product itself. The surfaces in Shoe Heaven created an identity for the whole space.
Surface and finish details as used by Lewis Taylor’s team at David Collins Studio for its high-end retail clients. Photography - Maxime Brouillet
‘It’s important across all of our projects that we use materials to create something that gives each one a uniquely iconic look and feel. Whether we’re working for Alexander McQueen or Jimmy Choo, we can create these custom surfaces that become iconic to the brand and give a real personality to the space. In the case of each of those brands, that unique brand identity can be rolled out to different stores around the world so that when you see some of those unique finishes then you can recognise it as being theirs.
Surface and finish details as used by Lewis Taylor’s team at David Collins Studio for its high-end retail clients. Photography - Maxime Brouillet
‘With the Jimmy Choo store we worked on at Selfridges earlier this year, for example, we used a woven metal mesh – which is primarily a heavyweight, architectural material – as a backdrop for the product itself on some of the fixtures. It’s a mixture of silver and gold metal woven together to create a flexible material. There’s depth and colour to it, and that’s really important when we specify for clients.
Surface and finish details as used by Lewis Taylor’s team at David Collins Studio for its high-end retail clients. Photography - Maxime Brouillet
‘There are so many new suppliers coming up with new techniques and technology that there is always something different we can introduce to projects or amend in some way. We sometimes even collaborate with the supplier to create something unique. ‘The mix of old and new also makes things interesting. We might include laser-etched metal next to a scagliola finish such as we’re using at Gleneagles.
Surface and finish details as used by Lewis Taylor’s team at David Collins Studio for its high-end retail clients. Photography - Maxime Brouillet
So that’s a really modern material being used alongside a technique that has been used for many hundreds of years. ‘We don’t really have a favourite material to work with as such, as we always seem to be discovering “new favourites”, but right now it is more about achieving a great mix of materials within a project.
Surface and finish details as used by Lewis Taylor’s team at David Collins Studio for its high-end retail clients. Photography - Maxime Brouillet
In the Jimmy Choo project, alongside the metal-mesh material on the walls, there is a gold mirror ceiling, next to smoked Perspex on the fixtures, as well as tables made from “impassioned copper”, in which the copper has been heated to create a rainbow-like effect.
Lewis Taylor. Photography - Maxime Brouillet
‘To get the balance right we work really hard on our sample boards which are ever-evolving during the concept stage of a project – we’re constantly taking things off, getting custom samples done and putting different ideas in to the mix to achieve the right result.’
