Having frequented the optometrist for the past 25 years, it is hard not to notice the lack of inspiring interiors. Often greeted with two options: a moody space with ironically poor lighting and dingy carpets, or it is brightly lit, white, and clinical space; either doesn’t inspire the desire to have one's eyesight corrected. However, Wink offers something completely different. Spearheaded by Mitchell Zurek and Andy Kelly of Brud Studia the interior of the Australia-based optometrist feels like coming home.
‘Optical stores have always felt to me like the waiting room of a very wealthy dentist,’ says Andy Kelly, one half of the studio. ‘Everything is intimidating, and you're expected to make a very serious decision about your face in front of a stranger. They can be beautiful, but they're rarely relaxed. We wanted to make somewhere people forgot they were shopping altogether. Somewhere that invited leaning. Somewhere you wanted to sit, drink a coffee, open a drawer.’
We wanted to make somewhere people forgot they were shopping altogether. Somewhere you wanted to sit, drink a coffee, open a drawer
Andy Kelly
The optometrist in Elwood, Melbourne, marks the duo's first retail interior project under Brud Studia. However, they wanted to create an environment which stepped away from behaving like a traditional retail space. Instead, they created a character.
Zurek and Kelly wanted to create a space where it felt like you were stepping inside someone else's world for half an hour. ‘Every decision was simply asking what our character would have done.’
They looked at the old English nursery rhyme, There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, ‘except this time she lived inside her glasses case, which itself lived inside a Simone Rocha egg clutch,’ Kelly shares. ‘She was part Iris Apfel, part impossibly glamorous grandmother. She tears bread without ever crushing it. Every object she has arrived through circumstance rather than shopping. She collected beautiful things but couldn't remember where she'd found half of them. Every surface held another story. Every drawer concealed another treasure; nothing matched, and somehow everything belonged together.’
Much like their worldly character, the interiors are well travelled, with references dancing between Milan apartments, 70s New York, and Australia’s suburbia influenced by European sensibilities. A retail counter was replaced with a kitchen, with a central island at the core of the space, as Kelly shares, ‘Counters separate people. Kitchens bring them together. The island asks clients to gather around it rather than stand opposite. It changes the entire rhythm of the space.’
Inside, the interior is complete with stainless steel, block colours, and timber joinery. Collectible design objects punctuate the space. It's an amalgamation of texture and tones, yet feels entirely cohesive, without a central piece fighting for attention. ‘Retail interiors often feel obligated to announce themselves immediately, but we were far more interested in creating a space that revealed itself gradually,’ explains the studio founders.
‘Even the boldest gestures, like the lacquered red cabinetry, exist within a deliberately domestic scale. There are tiny mosaic tiles underfoot, small drawers to open, carefully considered handles, mirrors that catch unexpected reflections, and lighting that quietly punctuates the room rather than dominates it. Nothing exists simply to be photographed. The experience unfolds slowly, rewarding curiosity rather than demanding your immediate attention.’
Retail interiors often feel obligated to announce themselves immediately, but we were far more interested in creating a space that revealed itself gradually
Andy Kelly
Glasses occupy a funny place in our lives, as they allow you to try out different versions of yourself and how you want to present yourself to the world. Kelly and Zurek agree: ‘They're practical objects, of course, but they're also one of life's great disguises. A new pair of glasses quietly permits you to become someone else. Wink is, technically speaking, an optometrist. But with the right frames and a hurried box of black hair dye applied in a petrol station bathroom, she's retail in witness protection.’
With many reflective materials from mirrors to the industrial mesh ceiling, each new glimpse offers another version of the space. ‘In an optometrist, you're constantly looking at yourself. Rather than disguising that fact, we exaggerated it.’ There is a disguised tension. And perhaps that is rather fitting.
brudstudia.com
winkoptom.com.au
