NETHERLANDS. Balenciaga and Lagardère Travel Retail have opened the first store at a European airport for the luxury brand, at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol Lounge 2. The airside store offers women’s and men’s shoes, bags, accessories, eyewear and jewellery.
The design is based on Balenciaga’s ‘Raw Architecture’ concept, which features an unfinished or in-progress look. The concrete façade is unprimed and seemingly weathered, marked with a glowing Balenciaga logo. It opens up to a matching cylindrical column and rough, colourless surfaces with patinas inspired by construction sites and gutted buildings. A floor of poured concrete tiles is textured to resemble an outdoor sidewalk in look and feel.
The walls are panelled with distressed concrete or covered with mottled, concrete-grey curtains. A steel grid ceiling hung with industrial lighting reveals the technical infrastructure of the store. Aluminium shelves, display tables, worn leather seating, and aged hanging bars add to the atmosphere of decay and renewal, offering a stripped backdrop to present the brand’s latest collections.
