The convenience of internet shopping is often blamed for the demise of the small shopkeeper and the downfall of the high street, but perhaps this charmingly antediluvian premise of this wristwatch boutique, opened recently by design and architecture webzine Dezeen, will start a trend for boutiques originating on the web.
With trade in their keenly edited selection of design-centric wristwatches growing online - Dezeen sells architectural timepieces by the likes of Alessi, Braun, Hygge, Lexon, Lorenz and Mondaine - proprietors Marcus Fairs and Rupinder Bhogal decided that they needed an extended office for specialist horology staff. ’The office space became a display and storage area before mutating into a shop,’ says designer Philippe Malouin, director of the London-based architectural and interiors practice Post Office, who was called in to transform the former Stoke Newington doctors’ surgery into an interior that would serve as both online admin office and face-to-face sales facility for the Dezeen Watch Store.
Working with studio colleague Will Yates and an industrial supplier that makes wire shopping trolleys and gymnasium changing-room furniture, Malouin commissioned a grid of welded-wire, back-lit lockers in surrounds of his beloved ply material, intended to dual-function as display and security. ’The store and its watches appeal to Dezeen buyers,’ he says. ’They are design-conscious but not super-rich residents with flash gold watches. This isn’t Mayfair.’
