Cubitts West Village by Tutto Bene is a “stage for spectacles”
This compact eyewear retailer in New York’s West Village has been divided into “on stage” and “backstage” areas, as part of a design studio Tutto Bene’s “love letter to theatrical glamour”.
The second New York Metropolis retailer for UK-based mannequin Cubitts is positioned on Bleecker Highway, a thoroughfare acknowledged for its architectural attraction and variety of boutiques.
Design studio Tutto Bene, which is behind various Cubitts interiors, appeared to the historic previous of the neighbourhood and the developing – as quickly as home to playwright Lorraine Hansberry — to inform this location.
“It’s a love letter to theatrical glamour, holding a mirror to the dualities of ‘on stage’ and ‘backstage’, non-public and non-private lives,” acknowledged the design workforce. “The doorway of the store is designed as a stage for spectacles. A theatre of the daily, for the theatrical masks all of us placed on.”
The eyewear is displayed on picket shelving recessed into beige felt-lined partitions and illuminated by cove lights hidden behind.
Wooden floorboards are stained black to emulate a stage, whereas movable present plinths created from brushed aluminium have a prop-like prime quality.
Overhead, a Eighties geometric pendant lamp by Swiss architect Mario Botta joins a Sixties Kaiser Leuchten desk lamp by German designer Klaus Hempel – every chosen for his or her resemblance to theatre flashlights.
A velvet-upholstered sofa is positioned throughout the window for patrons to leisure, relax, and observe the effectivity of attempting on eyewear, providing “a front-row seat for the weary spectacle browser” based mostly on Tutto Bene.
The curved wall behind a partition leads to the “backstage” house, which is adorned in contrasting darkish brown.
This space is used for bespoke consultations and contains a self-esteem mirror with lightbulbs like in a theatre dressing room.
To have enjoyable the West Village retailer opening, Cubitts has launched three new frames modelled on native landmarks along with former speakeasy Chumley’s and the Whitney Museum of American Art work.
The mannequin was based mostly in King’s Cross, London, in 2013, and now has 19 outlets unfold all through both aspect of the Atlantic.
Tutto Bene is led by Felizia Berchtold and Oskar Kohnen, and has studios in London and Milan.
The company’s earlier interiors for Cubitts embrace a retailer in Islington, north London, modelled on an artist’s loft and a boutique in New York’s Soho influenced by early Twentieth-century American industrial design.
The photographs is by Alice Gao.
