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Architects: FATHOM
- Area: 129 m²
- Year: 2023
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Photographs:Tatsuya Tabii
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Manufacturers: Esco
Text description provided by the architects. This is a relocation project for a vintage clothing store that has had a store on a semi-underground location on Namiki-dori in Naka-ku, Hiroshima City for many years. Since the new location would be on the first floor and more than double the space, we were asked to design a store that would not only cater to the core vintage clothing enthusiasts of the past, but would also broaden its customer base. When I looked at the items lined up in the space before the relocation, I felt as if they were one-of-a-kind haute couture pieces that, despite being vintage clothing, conveyed the handiwork of careful processing of each item, It had the power to instantly change the concept of vintage clothing that I had felt before, I felt it was necessary to create a space that would convey this impression to visitors.
Considering that this is a street without sidewalks, the facade is set back slightly to create an entrance porch in front of the building. In the cycle of secondhand clothing, the storefront with its finished products is the so-called goal. The entrance porch is an eye-catcher of compressed and hardened acrylic pieces of used clothing to express the rough, raw, and unprocessed state of the clothes that were purchased overseas and brought to Japan in containers. We hope that when visitors open the container, they will first feel the exciting mass of unlimited possibilities that only the owner of the store who went to buy the items can see.
The L-shaped counter on the left, as you enter the store, is designed to allow both reception and maintenance to take place at the same time, creating a sizzling effect like an open kitchen as the owner adds a bit of work to the vintage clothing he has purchased. Instead of a dimly lit space with lots of wood like existing secondhand clothing stores, the refined beauty of a secondhand clothing production factory and a select store are mixed in one space to create a bright and clear space that conveys the quality of the products.
However, we were concerned that if the chaotic and disparate color scheme of the products, which were gathered from various types of vintage clothing from overseas, were placed in a refined and simple space, the contrast between the two would become too strong and the space and the products would appear to be separated. Therefore, for the entrance doors, hangers, and other fixtures where products are placed and people come into contact with them, we used uni-chrome plating, which is normally used for small parts such as screws. The organic gradation of colors from brass to rainbow, which is a characteristic of UNIQLORO plating, was considered to be linked to the products and to create harmony in the space.
We hope that visitors will be able to understand at a glance the sustainable cycle of old, tattered clothes that cross the ocean, are carefully processed one by one, and are then sold as products in the store, thereby expanding the range of people who love old clothes.
