Vans Oxford St London

Retail

W1D

An iconic brand that prides itself on achieving both durability and style, Vans are known worldwide for their skateboarding-inspired footwear and clothing. While the brand’s style has remained classic throughout the years, the company has a forward-thinking attitude that propels all of its endeavours, from exciting new products to a Vans-sponsored team of athletes competing on an international level.

The Brief

As part of the promotional activity surrounding the launch of ‘The UltraRange EXO’ in their Oxford Street store, our client Vans commissioned our help creating a two-month long customer event that would be visually stimulating and immersive. With a bold vision, the design took prompts from Brutalist architectural elements with widespread use of concrete, chunky black framework, and retro visual equipment.

The event was brought to life using a mirrored glasshouse, CCTV walls, and concrete plinths designed to display the footwear range, all of which was interspersed with abundant foliage. The goal for the live planting was to create an organic overgrown look, which would contrast and soften the heavy Brutalist design features and provide pops of colour to complement both the fitout design and the products.

The Solution

Due to the busy nature of the Vans Oxford Street store, one of our priorities when designing the planting scheme was to ensure that the installation was contained, safe, and fit for purpose whilst also bringing the client’s vision to life. In order to do this, we worked closely with the client’s creative retail design team to advise and build suitable planting units into their fitout.

As our scheme made use of predominantly live planting, it was important that suitable planting containers were used to support the weekly maintenance visits that would be required during the two months that the plants were on site. This allowed us to keep the plants thriving and looking their best for the client and the installation visitors.

To achieve the organic and overgrown effect, we made use of a range of plant species with varying heights, leaf shapes, patterns and colours. The plant varieties included Kentia palms, Monsteras, Philodendrons, Calatheas and Scindapsus, amongst many others. Using this wide range of species meant that the planting was visually interesting and dynamic, adding an eye-catching element to the overall fitout of the store.

While we endeavour to use live planting wherever possible, in order to meet the clients design requirements we introduced replica trailing planting in places, as well as the live plants. This allowed us to continue the greenery into areas of the fitout where installation of planters was not suitable.

Overall, the effect of the planting design was striking and created an unusual and impactful way for Vans to showcase their new product range. To learn more about how we can help you bring life to your retail fit outs, get in touch today.