Category Archives: Design

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Bambi’s Boxes, Part II.

Dresses at sea

The second installment from Bambi’s Boxes features the Piaff vitrines designed by conceptual artist, Najla El Zein. First off, Piaff, a clothing store, is located near Gefinor on Clemenceau, after CMC on your righthand side – if you reach Downtown, you’ve gone too far.

From inside Piaff
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 This season’s displays are based on the structure of coral reefs. However, the constructed corals are made out of mini cocktail umbrellas. The multicolored umbrellas were shipped in to Lebanon but while constructing the display, they ran short. Instead of trashing the whole idea, voids were incorporated into the umbrella corals. It’s all very under-the-sea-where’s-my-margarita.

Umbrellas!

Gaps
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Najla El Zein had given a small talk once this spring about her work and conceptual designs which is mainly installations or abstract sculpture work. An “installation” is an artwork that has to be set-up or installed in 3D space. Her works include fluffy clouds, a giant head of hair and a big ball of welded spoons. The spoons, rightly titled “6302 Spoons”, has 6302 spoons melted into a teardrop womb-shaped ball that doubles as a wall lamp. It looks a bit like a metal version of the dripping goo that is Princess Daisy’s father in Super Mario Bros, the movie. You can check out more of El Zein’s work on her website.

El Zein has done work for Piaff before. She was also the designer behind their last window displays which were pinwheels that spun thanks to fans inside the store. This display was more interesting to see at night when the store was closed – the pinwheels spun and the dresses billowed in a vacated showroom/area. It was spooky and mesmerizing.

Pinwheels
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Dresses
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Bambi’s Boxes, Part I.

LV display in London, UK back in April ’12

I have decided to dedicate a part of this blog to a somewhat overlooked art (in the country): display design. As defined by TheFreeDictionary, display design is

 
“a field of the decorative arts that includes the temporary festive decoration of streets, public squares, and industrial sites; window dressing; and the design of decorations and displays for demonstrations, public holidays, athletic events, parades, and various types of exhibitions. Display design makes use of the expressive resources of architecture, sculpture, painting, graphics, theater, film-making, and lighting. It thereby provides the most large-scale examples of a synthesis of the arts. Display design interacts with the existing architecture but, in contrast to it, usually has agitational content.”
 
In other words, it’s the conceptual thought that goes into the vitrines that make selling products more visually stimulating. The posts revolving around this subject (titled Bambi’s Boxes since vitrines are essentially boxes) will depend on how often I discover an intriguing display in Lebanon and how long/if I can gather some background info about the creator(s) behind it. Given that displays do not change frequently, these posts will probably be about once or twice a month and if you’re not a fan of this sort of thing, there’s still the usual lists, film clips, letters and random ramblings that will continue to be posted regularly. 
 
So without further ado, I’m going to start this off with one of the giants in display design: Louis Vuitton. 
 
LV in Beirut, Lebanon in February ’12

This past year, they have had vitrines with giant cupcakes, white carousel horses (seen above), and multicolored arrows. Like every smart brand, they’re vitrines are identical in all their stores across the world – but not to the same degree or a complete copy/paste layout. Based on size of the shop and structure of the window, they can vary in arrangement. Sometimes, the design is applied on the interior of the store as well, being incorporated into the presentation of the products. The themes are usually concepts coming from commissioned artists. 



Worldwide this season, LV has a pop-up collaboration with Yayoi Kusama, a Japanese artist, and it’s all about tentacles – her work shows her obsession with the idea of accumulation. Using this, Louis Vuitton partnered with the artist to create a new polka dot collection. The “Polka Dot Artist” is also featured within some of the displays in dolled up mannequin form. She looks like a Japanese Anna Wintour. These pop-up stores are featured in Singapore, Hong Kong’s Pacific Place (until Sept. 8), Tokyo Shinjuku Isetan (until July 31), Tokyo Dover Street Market (until Aug. 26), New York Soho (until July 31), Paris Le Printemps Department Store (Aug. 23-Oct. 21) and London Selfridges Department Store (Aug. 24-Oct. 19). You can check out the collection here.


The vitrines feature tentacles and venus flytrap-like plants with eye ball centers that allude to Little Shop of Horrors creatures in my opinion. Here’s a trailer of the movie so you can see what I mean:



The vitrines in Beirut now:

 




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PaperCards at Papercup

In Mar Mikhael, the artsy fartsy district of Beirut, there is an art bookstore called Papercup. It is already well-known by people who it caters to: designers, artsy folk, hipsters and foreigners. It’s a small place and hard to find if you haven’t been there before.

Directions: Drive down Gouraud Street in Gemmayzeh until it eventually joins the main road of Mar Mikhael (Alexandria Street), past EDL. Keep going until you get to the road between SEAT and Pharmacie Cilicie on your left. Park and walk down that road (unless you want to be Lebanese and drive the wrong way on a one way street) and take a left.

There on the right side you will see Papercup.

They have a couple of shelves of magazines, a frequently restocked collection of art books as well as a mini cafe inside. Personally, my favorite part of the whole shop is the assortment of greeting cards and stationery: a bit by Lebanese designers but mostly imported. I have a hard time finding great cards for occasions (or just for the heck of it because it’s a sad obsession of mine), so this is a nice find when you want a card that’s original and isn’t drowning in cheesy cliches. They’re a bit on the pricey side, each card running at an average of $6 – but in all fairness, Hallmark cards are around the same if not more only they’re lame. 

My cards

 Once you’re done looking around, whether you’ve found something or not…You can go across the street to Frosty’s Palace, Papercup’s owner’s sister’s place. It’s small so you may have to wait if full but it’s got meaty burgers and milkshakes which are pretty meaty and delicious respectively, if you decide to forego the cheddar (with the burger at least?).

With cheddar could be good too, I’d have to go back for further investigation just for you guys. I’m such a trooper, I know.

Random factoid: they have environmentally friendly straws made out of cardboard.