Finalist at INSIDE Awards Singapore, the Gaurav Gupta Flagship Store handcrafts luxury through everyday materials to shape a raw canvas that brings to life the client’s vision for a graphic representation of a surreal fantasy.
A collaborative venture between Studio Lotus and leading Indian fashion designer Gaurav Gupta, the concept of the store is born out of the duality of Gaurav’s collections for his Pret and Couture lines.
The 1,250-sqft space is conceived as an immersive environment sculpted in monochrome. Sinuously warping cast concrete walls seem to surreally float within the relatively tight volume, and slice the space into two zones without dividing it. As you meander through, there is a constant sense of reveal and discovery. The store has a sense of stark honesty in its conception and execution through its raw materiality. The focus is on structure and form echoing Gaurav’s cutting-edge design philosophy with his clothes.
The store has been entirely crafted by hand, right from the cast concrete panels and walls, to the hand-forged ceiling suspended racks on one side, and the Art Nouveau-inspired lacquered iron racks on the other. The mirrors are cast using fabric to create an illusion of melting. Surrealist pieces, some are suspended and others floor-mounted with cast mild steel bird sculptures on either side. The drama is heightened by the sculpted pieces of furniture and artefacts crafted in mild steel and quilted leather, that appear almost carelessly strewn in the space.