DeMellier’s Sloane Square Flagship Wants You to Stay for Dinner
The London handbag label's first store has a living room, a sixty-year-old dining table and a corner that shows how a bag is made. Architect Nicolas Schuybroek designed it.
The handbags at the new DeMellier Sloane Square flagship share the room with books, ceramics and vintage furniture, and nobody has told them they’re the main attraction. That is the whole idea. The London-born label opened its first store of its own on 24 October, and it looks a lot more like somebody’s well-edited house than a shop.
The man behind the house is Belgian architect Nicolas Schuybroek. Working with DeMellier, he designed two floors filled with vintage furniture, contemporary pieces, original artworks and natural materials. Nothing reads as staged for an opening night. The place looks collected over time, with permanence favoured over trends, and it’s meant to age well.
Sit down, put the bag on the sofa
The ground floor is a living room, quite literally. Books, ceramics and objects sit next to the collection, so the bags become part of the furnishings rather than the focus of them. The aim is comfort and familiarity, the kind that makes a customer want to stay a while. A shop that hopes you’ll linger is a confident move for a brand, and it is the one DeMellier is making.
Downstairs, the living room gives way to a dining room. Its centrepiece is a four-metre table, handcrafted from sixty-year-old reclaimed timber. It’s intended for small dinners and conversations with friends of the brand. So the store is a place to gather as much as a place to buy, and the furniture does as much of the persuading as the product does.
Close by is the Craft Corner, which takes the usual retail mystery of “where did this come from?” and answers it with evidence. Tools, materials and imagery are laid out. A deconstructed bag shows how a finished piece goes together, so you can see the construction rather than take it on trust. Footage from the brand’s factories is projected onto linen panels, which is a nicer way to watch a production line than reading a spec sheet.
Shelves with opinions
The bookshelves do some of the talking about what DeMellier stands for. Titles on women in art, architecture and photography sit alongside works by British female artists. In a house, the books say who lives there. Here they say the same about the brand.
Longevity is part of the offer too, through a lifetime repairs service and an approach to reducing waste. That fits a space designed to look better with age. There’s also A Bag, A Life, the brand’s initiative that reaches beyond the shop floor. It funds life-saving vaccines and medical treatments for children in need.
Why a store, and why now
DeMellier relaunched in 2017 and has since gathered a loyal following online and a growing international retail network. A flagship in London, the city where the brand began, is the logical next step. A room designed to feel lived in is a smart way for a label with that kind of online following to show it also exists in three dimensions.
The launch itself was an intimate affair, and it matched the setting. Friends of the brand gathered over drinks and canapés, with the collection on display while guests caught up and explored the store. The evening closed with a private performance by Birdy, whose familiar songs brought some welcome nostalgia to the room. Personalised touches were offered to guests throughout the night, which is about as house-party as a product launch gets.
The store is at 35-37 Sloane Square, London, SW1W 8AQ. It’s open Monday to Saturday from 10am to 8pm, and on Sunday from 12pm to 6pm. If you go, leave time for the table downstairs.
Via DSCENE