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This compact eyewear store 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”. More
Design studio Tutto Bene looked to surrealist artworks and Italian modernist exhibition design when creating the interior for this eyewear store in Islington, north London.
Set in the Angel area, the 60-square-metre store belongs to eyewear brand Cubitts and features an interior concept conceived by Tutto Bene based on the architecture of the space itself.
A 1960s glass and chrome chandelier decorates Cubitts’ Angel store”It’s a long, slim room with an atelier atmosphere due to the strong contrasts of light and shadow,” the studio’s co-founder Oskar Kohnen told Dezeen.
“The atelier feeling immediately evoked a sense of being at an artist’s loft, this feeling of residential elements mixed with workshop-like rawness is what we wanted to embrace.”
Design studio Tutto Bene referenced art movements and artworks for the interiorTo underline this feeling, the studio added decorative pieces that nod to different art movements throughout the space.
“The individual elements of the store design reference surrealist artworks and Italian modernist exhibition design from the 1940s and 50s through play on perspective, rational spatial composition and painterly use of colour,” Kohnen said.
Green silk panels were placed along an entire wallA skylight lets plenty of light into the Cubitts shop, which Tutto Bene reflected via glass details placed inside the store.
“We didn’t want to over-complicate the dynamic of the space,” the studio’s co-founder Felizia Berchtold told Dezeen.
Tutto Bene references Streamline Moderne in tiny New York eyewear store
“Instead we placed monolithic elements within it that offer points of interest and grounding,” she added.
“Each element speaks a clear material language. There are hues of greens and yellow, the transparency of the nile glass, as well as areas of black that balance the space’s abundance of natural light.”
Glass details reflect light in the storeThe slim, rectangular store features glass shelves set against a backdrop of sage-green silk from fabric house Holland & Sherry along the entire right-hand wall, in another reference to art and artworks.
“The long shelf stretching the entire length of the space represents an artist’s easel, as well as exhibition tableaus,” Berchtold explained.
“The natural slubs and beautiful colour variation that the silk brings provide a reverent backdrop for the frames displayed on it, whilst being a quiet artwork in itself.”
A black volume stores custom-made framesAlong the left-hand side, Tutto Bene placed black storage and display volumes, as well as Cubitts’ eye-examination room.
Kohnen and Berchtold designed many of the furniture pieces personally for the interior, among them an undulating orange seat.
The store is located in Angel, Islington”Most elements are bespoke pieces we designed, including the Uovo chaise,” Berchtold said.
“Then there’s some vintage treasures such as the 1960s glass and chrome chandelier and a group of FontanaArte prism-like pieces that complement and contextualise our fixture designs, as well as photographic works by Lee Miller, casting the store through her surrealist lens.”
Tutto Bene has previously designed the interior of Cubitts’ first New York store as well as the steel-and-mirror Nightingale restaurant in London’s Mayfair.
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Curved metallic surfaces influenced by early 20th century American industrial design form displays at this compact store in New York City, designed by London studio Tutto Bene for eyewear brand Cubitts.
Tutto Bene was briefed to create an elegant and meticulously crafted space for Cubitts’ first store outside of the UK that evokes the past century of New York’s history.
Cubitts has opened a store in New York CityThe store at 103 Mercer Street has a total floor area of just 25 square metres, which the designers claimed makes it possibly the smallest retail site in all of SoHo.
Felizia Berchtold and Oskar Kohnen of Tutto Bene told Dezeen that they set out to create an experiential and intriguing interior with “the ornate precision of a jewellery box”.
The interior was designed by London studio Tutto Bene”Within the retail landscape of SoHo there is a pop-up feeling and one sees a lot of set-design quality fit-outs,” the designers said.
“We wanted to counterbalance this trend by creating a space made to last for a decade and to communicate the value that is put into the product inside it.”
Charlotte Perriand’s LC8 stool is among the vintage furnishingsThe functional and precisely detailed design of Cubitts’ spectacles provided the main inspiration for the store, which also references the streamlined forms of Streamline Moderne – an aerodynamic offshoot of art deco that emerged in the 1930s.
“We took that engineering aspect of spectacle-making and interpreted it in kinetic elements throughout the store, like the rotary mirrors and the sculptural steel curve, reflecting hues of light like the sparkling towers we know New York for,” the duo said.
The dominant colour is a brick-red hue borrowed from New York’s streetscapeAn S-shaped metal display at the centre of the space helps to define the flow of movement whilst echoing the smooth silhouettes of the brand’s eyewear.
Walls clad in black ebonised ash create a dark backdrop, against which soft lighting and pops of colour create a theatrical effect reminiscent of the paintings of American artist Edward Hopper.
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“Areas of glamorous darkness are peppered with light,” said Tutto Bene. “Shimmering reflections, reminiscent of city lights, emphasise the store’s meticulous detailing and represent the care and attention put into the products it encloses.”
The main colour used is a brick-red hue borrowed from the New York streetscape, which according to the studio adds “some playfulness and art deco glamour, contrasting the muted black with dramatic warmth and texture”.
Tutto Bene also created custom hand-shaped mirrors for the storeThe geometric forms used throughout the store recall the works of artist Donald Judd, who once lived and worked across the street. The artistic tributes continue in the restroom, which is papered with aluminium foil as an homage to Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory.
Carefully chosen vintage pieces including wall lights from Austrian brand Kalmar, Charlotte Perriand’s LC8 stool and an Opalino vase by Tommaso Buzzi complement the store’s colour and material palette.
The bathroom was papered with aluminium foil Tutto Bene also created bespoke mirrors, which customers can use when trying out different frames. The marble objects were hand-crafted at a stone workshop in Florence, Italy.
“In the pared-back store, these hand-carved glove-like marble sculptures draw attention through their surrealist appearance,” the designers added.
“When you pick them up, they lie heavy in the hand. The weight sharpens one’s consciousness and gives the gesture of looking in the mirror a considered quality.”
The wallpaper is an homage to Andy Warhol’s Silver FactoryTo celebrate the store’s launch, Cubitts released a collection of seven frames inspired by New York landmarks including the Flatiron Building and Radio City Music Hall.
The opening follows a series of new Cubitts stores in the UK including one in a former jellied-eel restaurant and another in a 19th-century London townhouse.
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Local studio EBBA Architects has designed a store for eyewear brand Cubitts that preserves and draws on the original 1930s interior of the traditional F Cooke restaurant on London’s Broadway Market.
The restaurant, which sold cockney dishes such as jellied eel and pie and mash, had been located on the east London street since 1900 but was given a modernist update in the 1930s.
The Cubitts store on Broadway Market is located inside a former restaurantEBBA Architects turned the space into a 145-square-metre Cubitts store but kept almost all the original interiors of the Grade II-listed restaurant, which had been unoccupied since 2019.
F Cooke’s marble tables were given new legs made from stained birch plywood and now hold eyewear display cases in a sunny hue that matches the original wall tiles.
Pale yellow tiles clad the walls”The tables are original but we designed the legs to kind of make it feel like a new feature,” EBBA Architects founder Benni Allan told Dezeen.
“The table has just been scrubbed up,” he said. “Imagine how many nice pies have been eaten on that table.”
“I think what’s nice is that everything below [the tables] has had this quite warm treatment to bring in a nice texture and tone, and then everything above is much lighter.”
Different coloured material samples are displayed on wooden shelvesThe studio also kept the original stained-glass windows and the counter that used to serve food, turning it into a point of sale, while a repair station for glasses fills the window facing the street.
Pale yellow tiles bordered by bands of contrasting blue and turquoise tiles decorate the walls. These are the original interior from 1930 and were cleaned using “loads of elbow grease”, Allan said.
The former food counter was turned into a point of saleIn the main showroom of the two-storey store, the studio also kept the restaurant’s mirrors, only removing one to create a display case and sales point.
“All the additions are kind of appendages or accoutrements on the base of the original structure,” Cubitts founder Tom Broughton told Dezeen.
An orange staircase leads to the lower floorDownstairs, EBBA Architects made more interventions, as the space was dark and hadn’t been furnished to the same level as the main upstairs space.
“It was really quite dark and dingy down there, so the colours from upstairs informed this really bright orange in the staircase,” Allan said.
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The studio used stained plywood to create a sliding wood screen with a square pattern based on the tiles in the main store, as well as creating a bright-coloured staff room with a “secret door”.
It also added tiled floors with a decorative pattern in a colour palette that references that of the restaurant.
“There’s that really beautiful intricate detailing upstairs, so we wanted to sort of mirror that down here with these different patterns in the floor,” Allan said.
EBBA Architects designed a sliding door for the eye-test roomDownstairs also holds the eyewear testing centre, which is located underneath the street above.
Broughton and Allan tried to keep as many of the original details from the restaurant as possible. The tank where the live eels were once kept before being boiled is left standing in an outdoor space downstairs and the restaurant’s sign remains above the front door.
The store has retained its original signage and one of the benchesOne of the benches, on which people used to sit and eat, has been placed outside the store. And the Cooke family behind the restaurant chain – which still has two outposts – has lent Cubitts some of its original pie tins alongside the bowls used to serve jellied eels and a picture of founder Bob Cooke.
The Cubitts Broadway Market store is located in an area that has become increasingly gentrified over the past decade, with many local shops being taken over by chains.
Original stained-glass windows decorate the interiorThough some people have been nostalgic about the time when the store was a pie-and-mash shop, Allan and Broughton said there have also been positive reactions to the refurbishment
“People have actually been really chuffed that it stayed the same,” Allan said.
“Someone could come in here in a decade or two and actually put it back into a pie and mash shop. Even though [the changes] feel purposeful, it’s quite a light touch. If anything, we’ve kind of given it a new lease of life, because it was actually pretty grimy.”
A repair station sits in the windowThis is also the general tactic for Cubitts, Broughton said. When looking for new stores, the brand focuses on finding spaces that have existing interiors, with other outposts set in a 19th-century townhouse in Belgravia and a Victorian arcade in Leeds.
“Ideally, [the store] already has this existing structure and framework that you can clean up and add a bit of product and a few fittings to,” he said.
“And that’s the really nice thing, right? If you can take something that’s already beautiful, give it a new lease of life and make it relevant to someone today, that’s really cool.”
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London practice Child Studio has created an “intimate and domestic atmosphere” inside this store by local eyewear brand Cubitts, which occupies a townhouse in Belgravia.
Taking over the building’s basement and ground floor, the shop was designed to draw on both the modernist aesthetic of Cubitts’ frames and the history of Belgravia.
Cubitts Belgravia has a front room with a cast iron fireplace (top and above)The central London neighbourhood was first established in the 1830s in line with plans by Georgian master builder Thomas Cubitt, who also gave the eyewear brand its name.
“It was important for us to build a layered narrative for this project and to connect the townhouse architecture with the modernist ethos of the brand,” said Child Studio founders Alexy Kos and Che Huang.
The store’s display stands are designed to look like room dividersThe studio reinstated many of the building’s Georgian design features, which had disappeared over years of renovation works.
The original wooden floorboards were uncovered and restored, while the walls were painted a chalky yellow hue that was typical of the period.
Most of the doorways were either extended to reach three metres in height or adorned with ornate architraves that complement the interior’s wall mouldings and cornices.
Some of the doorways reach three metres in heightIn the store’s front room, the studio installed a cast iron fireplace that is meant to foster an “intimate and domestic atmosphere”.
“We imagined a contemporary interpretation of a classic drawing room – an elegant living room where guests may be welcomed and entertained,” explained the studio.
“We were particularly inspired by the pioneering designer Eileen Gray, who lived in this part of London in the early years of her career in the 1900s.”
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On the other side of the space is a custom concertina display stand that’s meant to resemble a traditional room divider.
This stand is lined with creamy linen-like wallpaper while another stand at the rear of the store was crafted from mahogany and finished with brass edging.
Domestic decorative items like lamps and armchairs were placed throughout the storeOther homely design features like mirrors and upholstered armchairs were dotted throughout the store as decoration.
There are also a number of antique light fixtures including Gray’s domed Jumo lamp and a golden leaf-shaped desk light by 1970s Italian designer Tommaso Barbi.
This includes a leaf-like brass lamp by Italian designer Tommaso BarbiChild Studio has designed several of Cubitts’ eyewear stores across the UK.
Among them is a branch in Leeds that takes cues from different design periods through history and an outpost in London’s Soho, which draws inspiration from the neighbourhood’s infamous sex shops.
The photography is by Felix Speller.
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London design practice Child Studio has combined Victorian-style joinery with modernist and art deco touches inside the Cubitts eyewear store in Leeds. More
