How to develop a curated store

Felipa was part of a team of future fashion strategists. During the development of [workshop] the team collaborated with Manon Schaap. The team decided in the first weeks of the research process to go back to the roots of the client: ArtEZ Fashion Masters. There were four reasons the word Master was important part of the concept. Firstly, ArtEZ Fashion Masters is a Master education for fashion designers and fashion strategists. The second reason was the location of the Fashion Masters. The Masters moved into a new building in the same year that  [‘wərk,sh äp] was founded. The third reason was that the team were mastering their skills to become a fashion professional. And the final motive, the team hope [‘wərk,sh äp] will be a relay. The first [‘wərk,sh äp] will be a basis for future [workshop]s created by new teams. The style decoder proposed to name this process of passing through [‘wərk,sh äp] a master tape. In a brainstorm session the Style Decoder explained this term. A Master tape is derived from a term used in the music industry. In this industry a master tape is the original recording of a single or album on tape (nowadays hard disk). The tape will be remixed or fine-tuned by a post-production technician. This remix is the product you buy on a CD or download. When a classic album is “remastered”, the technician will start from the tape made back in the days.

Inspiration

The inspiration for [‘wərk,sh äp] was the environment of the client ArtEZ Fashion Masters. The team browsed in the atelier room of the Fashion Design students. Another source of inspiration were concept stores from around the world. To name a few of these stores: Hunting and Collecting (Brussels), Ra (Antwerp) and ALIVESHOES (Amsterdam)

Concept

Entering the store, you enter a story. [‘wərk,sh äp] wants to invite friends and visitors in the world of four generations of ArtEZ Fashion Masters. The store is named workshop for two reasons. The first motive is that a workshop is a place where goods are made. The second reason is that a workshop is a meeting place. The logo of this shopping experience is phonetic for workshop, because the Fashion Masters is an international orientated college. And second, the team who created [‘wərk,sh äp] have an international background. To emphasize the feel of a working space of the Fashion Masters students the interior of [‘wərk,sh äp] is generic. Also real elements and attributes used by the students of the Fashion Masters are placed into the interior of the store.

Next to the experience [‘wərk,sh äp] offers small products, so a friend who visited the store can bring a piece of the experience back home. A few examples of the products are Turkish chalk, black fabric dye and ArtEZ press book Pattern drawing. The products trigger the creativity of the friend who visited [‘wərk,sh äp]. To make [‘wərk,sh äp] an experience, [‘wərk,sh äp] is created starting from the five senses. The senses are: smell, see, taste, touch and hear. Each sense represents a part of the concept. Smell is the concept. See is the interior part of the store. The mini collections of the Design students and products are Touch. And final is Hear, which consists the PR for [‘wərk,sh äp].

[workshop] is a shopping experience, but also a platform for the Design students and graduates Master Fashion strategy (MFS). The Design students present their individual mini collections and the process of designing the collection. [workshop] also show a short video made by Dutch duo Freudenthal/Verhagen featuring the designs the Design graduates of 2011. In [‘wərk,sh äp] the graduates MFS show their graduation projects on the computer. And the books of these graduates are in a glass showcase.

Product

This project has three products: the actual store, the research and concept book. [‘wərk,sh äp] is a temporary curated store in the ground floor of the ArtEZ Fashion Masters, Kortestraat 26 from 1^st of June until 28 June 2011. The store was open during Mode Biennale 2011 in Arnhem.

The role of Kesha Felipa within the team

Within [‘wərk,sh äp] Felipa functioned as graphic designer, visual curator and handy girl. She also was responsible for the look of the blog and edited the input for the blog. Together with the rest of the team Felipa posted photos and texts about the process of [‘wərk,sh äp] on this blog. Felipa checked if the right font and font size were used on the blog. Another role of Felipa was the handy girl. She made the pattern of the flag and sewn it. As a visual curator Felipa sourced for inspiring images from magazines, the Internet and self-made photos and edited these images.