Stella McCartney’s retail spaces were the first significant projects undertaken by our studio following its launch in 2001. McCartney, who had launched her eponymous fashion label in the same year, commissioned us to design the brand’s flagship retail spaces in New York and London. A rigorous approach was taken to creating bespoke design elements for the retail spaces, including a three-dimensional tile design by Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby inspired by the hexagon—nature’s building block. The tile became a signature feature of McCartney's flagship stores, with the layering of a petal motif over the hexagon was conceived as a more literal reference to the abstracted landscape theme. The pattern also offers a third visual layer, with the petals abstracting to circles when viewed from a distance.

The first of several stores that we worked on for the brand was a converted warehouse in New York’s Meatpacking district. Here, our brief was to create a relaxed environment with an ‘air of nature’, where customers would be free to explore and discover the brand's creations. In response, we created an ‘abstracted landscape’ informed by Stella’s desire to display her collections in an environment which provided a respite from the city. The notion of ‘the landscape’ was realised in a series of elements of differing scales including the contours and levels of the floors and hanging screens evocative of long grass. These formed a terrain for customers to casually explore.