Master of avant-garde darkness, Gareth Pugh, has decided it was high time to hijack his own retail space and opened his first store in Hong Kong. The high-gloss interior houses slick rubber walls, some of which feature his trademark quilted triangular motif and illuminated optical illusions. With neighbours such as Comme des Garcons and Maison Martin Margiela, he's in high-art concept store good company.

"Because it was my first store, I knew I had to do something that was very me" says Gareth. "So I went back to my runway shows and thought, what could be more me than a black box? But instead of doing something very one dimension, I decided to play around with a lot optical illusions that will change the space according to reflections. Contrasting themes such as shiny and matte, black and white, hard and soft are also important part of my style. I wanted to take these ideas and create something that would make sense in a retail environment."

Gotta say, the abstraction is utterly reminiscent of Pugh's NYE Boombox a few years back that saw the entire interior of the Hoxton Bar and Grill decked out in black PVC. Only on an infinitely higher budget. Anyway, in a further techno-concept Pugh will forgo mannequins and window displays, instead the windows will frame an LED wall to showcase imagery and graphics - of course, aided by his good friend Nick Knight.

Now's the time to get really jealous of the Chinese city: apparently Pugh has no other plans to open further stores, despite eventually wanting his own boutique in London. Well, if you take the boy out of Dalston...

Posted on August 03, 2010 at 5:51:00 by The Real Runway