A menswear showroom takes cues from Shanghai longtangs with a twist of orderliness
TEMP has completed its collaboration with the menswear brand ATE SIMO, who will, together with other young brands, shape the new MIX320 creative vibe on the century-old Wuyi Road in Shanghai.
ATE SIMO is the brainchild of visual designer Liu Zehui (Ate) and fashion designer Lyu Shuo (Simo), who has been designing garments from his studio and selling them directly to customers online. The duo invited TEMP to create their first retail space that is functionally flexible yet true to the brand.
A rigging system inspired by old Shanghai longtangs
Sitting on the third floor of a restored building that neighbors a residential longtang, the store shares view of old laundry drying racks from upper-floor windows.
Echoing their retractable metal poles with a twist, TEMP conceives a playful rigging display system. Six horizontal bars suspend from the ceiling, each with a winch and pulleys for height adjustments. With a weight load of around 300kg and cables long enough for the poles to touch the floor, the system can adapt to the different heights needed by various clothing.
Without any structural columns in the way, the architect pushes cabinets, changing room, and tea lounge to the site's perimeter. They wrap around a center stage, which could accommodate buying fairs, art events, and photoshoots, where poles can be dropped to hang artworks or raised to clear the room.
An Ordered minimalism
One material, oak wood, panels the whole showroom, referring to ATE SIMO's devotion to materiality through minimal design. Laid sparingly, recessed shelves and steel electrical outlets are both functional and decorative, indicating the little-talked-about importance of hardware and openings in a piece of clothes.
The entrance seduces with a mix of order and ingenuity. An antiquated mechanic doorbell engages the visitor's hand, while a narrow opening offers glimpses into an organized wooden room with exposed steel winches. This multi-dimensional interaction exalts what's at the heart of ATE SIMO, that even in an age of mass-produced fashion, structural integrity through manual labor remains the timeless fundamentals of constructing garments.
