French fashion designer Simon Jacquemus has opened a series of surrealist pop-up installations at London department store Selfridges, including a luxury-bag vending machine and a swimming-pool changing room.
Titled Le Bleu, the installation occupies a number of locations across the store, including its creative retail space The Corner Shop and the Old Selfridges Hotel, a former hotel space that is now being used as a pop-up venue.
The Corner Shop, which functions as the installation’s main retail space, features pale blue tiles blanketed across its interior. In its window, a large transparent tube of toothpaste spills ribbons of red and white gel.
An oversized bathtub, sponges, shower facilities and sinks were also installed in the space, where they function as display areas for a selection of exclusive Jacquemus products and pieces from the brand’s Spring Summer 2022 collection.
The pop-up spaces were designed as a “surrealist reimagining of Jacquemus founder Simon Jacquemus’ very own bathroom,” Selfridges said.
“I wanted to create crazy and unrealistic installations, all related to water and bathroom imagery,” said Jacquemus, founder of the eponymous brand.
The designer was inspired to create one of the installations, an oversized glass, after seeing a tablet fizzing in a glass of water.
“I also love how the giant tablet glass would also be very ‘eye calming’, a kind of visual ASMR installation in the middle of the Corner Shop,” he said.
On Edwards Mews behind Selfridges, a life-sized vending machine stocked with exclusive editions of the brand’s Chiquito and Bambino bags can be accessed for shopping 24 hours a day.
A large circular opening marks the entrance to the space, a square room lined with five-by-five rows of bags and accessories displayed in oversized, deep blue-hued vending machines.
At the Old Selfridges Hotel, the final pop-up – a sensory installation titled Le Vestiaire – references swimming-pool changing rooms.
Visitors are greeted by the now-familiar blue tiles, which cover the walls, floor and furniture of the space.
A curved welcome desk was positioned in front of a tile-clad wall that holds a collection of rolled-up towels.
Blue lockers and changing cubicles line the walls at the rear of the space and include “3D experiences” that draw on the iconography of surrealist French filmmaker Jacques Tati.
“Each experience is very different and playful, but my favourite would be Le Vestiaire, as it’s the first time we have invested in a space like this, with 3D experiences and crazy installations with our Jacquemus products,” said Jacquemus.
“I wanted to recreate an accumulation of lockers with different 3D experiences inside, inspired by Jacques Tati movies.”
The three pop-up installations are open from 3 May until 4 June 2022.
The installation is the latest edition of a series of Jacquemus’ vending machine pop-ups located across Europe’s fashion capitals, including Milan and Paris.
In 2019, Jacquemus designed a Parisian restaurant named Oursin that featured whitewashed walls, colourful ceramics and rattan furnishings in an effort to “perpetuate summer”.
French fashion brand Balenciaga recently transformed its Mount Street store into a temporary faux fur lined pop-up dedicated to its Le Cagole line.
Images are courtesy of Selfridges.
Source: Rooms - dezeen.com
