Christopher Jenner

Regent Street crafts English architectural heritage to eccentric effect, sitting jauntily within the Beaux Arts style for which the street is famous.

As the dictated and constrained moral values of Victorian England surrendered to a pre-war period of discovery, eccentricity and joviality. The Aesthetic movement expressed a committed support of aesthetic values over socio-political thinking, renouncing projected dictation and favouring values of ‘beauty'.

This design is an assembly of these values created via pattern, form and texture in a synthesis of traditional English handcraft and high-tech manufacturing. Styled as a symbiosis of the classic and contemporary, the concept investigates a thoroughly current fusion of classic Edwardian splendour and Japanese Manga.

A lateral approach to the design is revealed through the sole use of brand iconography as informant, layered via materials and textures, emphasising the studios signature pointillist style. Giant padded walls, punctured by sticky chamfered light boxes, draw the eye into the kaleidoscope; ceiling roses inspired by Westminster Abbey introduce a Tudor fretwork ceiling from which glossy Brighton Pavilion Onion Dome chandeliers are suspended.

This project explores the world of ‘sensation design’ demonstrating a strategic, creative technique, while cementing the relationship between brands, emotion, luxury and craft.