Los Angeles-based Standard Architecture has completed a store for fashion brand Helmut Lang that features smooth plaster walls, cove lighting and a light-filled garden (+ slideshow).
The boutique is located in an existing building on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, and is designed to reflect the minimalist aesthetic of the brand – set up by Austrian fashion designer Helmut Lang in 1986.
"The design of the Helmut Lang store connects the gallery-like, grayscale minimalism of the early stores to California – integrating contemporary art, subtle lighting and contrasting raw and refined," said Standard Architecture, which recently designed one of 12 cat houses for a charity auction.
Encompassing 3,000 square feet (279 square metres), the loft-like space for Helmut Lang features smooth-troweled plaster walls and polished concrete floors.
The designers incorporated accents of stainless steel and black, charcoaled wood.
The showroom is illuminated by reflected natural light and warm LED fixtures that are tucked into coves.
Display tables are covered in silver graffiti created by Retna, an LA-based graffiti artist known for his distinctive script inspired by ancient writing systems.
Standard Architecture created a small garden in the back of the showroom that is intended to evoke "the modern architecture of Los Angeles and Palm Springs".
Natural light enters the verdant space through cuts in the roof.
Additional details include a wooden daybed by French Modernist designer Charlotte Perriand and a checkerboard-like entry screen by LA artist Mark Hagen.
Other recently opened stores for fashion brands include a Versace showroom in Manhattan by SO-IL and a Valentino boutique in London by David Chipperfield.
Helmut Lang began designing clothes in his native Austria, but established his brand in Paris in the late 1980s at the height of minimalist fashion. He moved to New York in 1997 and set up a new headquarters in SoHo, but left his own label in 2006 after selling his remaining shares to Milan fashion house Prada. The company is now owned by Tokyo group Link Theory.