Care for An Espresso? ☕️
Looking at the continuing importance of non-digital spaces
There’s an interesting moment happening right now with brands and the ways they’re encouraging people to interact with and speak about them. Last week at Salone del Mobile Milano we saw two great instances of this, the brand as pop-up café, where Marimekko and RIMOWA took the same tack.
CAFFÉ RIMOWA was the collaboration between RIMOWA and La Marzocco, perhaps the well-known Italian makers of espresso machines, which ties nicely into Salone. I really liked this approach as the collaboration felt authentic, both companies known for their engineering around metals and machining. The café itself was adorable, with the iconic red of La Marzocco’s logo being utilized as the primary color for the event. It popped up everywhere, in the coffee cups, the gorgeous tile work of the interiors, the retro mirrored menu, and of course, the outdoor signage. The logo itself was also a winner, feeling like something born of the 70s though still quite modern. The M and W letters being inverted versions of each is such a nice touch. Putting that LVMH money to good use!
The Marimekko café, known as Bar Unikko (the Finnish word for poppy which is also their most iconic print) dressed up a traditional Milanese café with said poppy print adorning every surface. They enlisted the help of Apartamento Magazine, who really made the space feel super chic.
The goal with these coffee shops is to make the brand attainable by consumers. Can’t afford a RIMOWA suitcase? No problem, come by and get a free cup of coffee on the house. It’s also following suit with other major fashion brands who’ve made the café a part of their creative ecosystem. What pops to mind is Café Leon Dore, Ralph’s Coffee, Bar Luce, Café A.P.C., or even the Bode Tailor Shop. The same idea applies across the board. Experience a bit of a glamorous lifestyle for only five bucks.
The café is the kid brother of the fashion restaurant though. Think Gucci Osteria, helmed by famous chef Massimo Bottura, as a great example of brand extension. They now have four locations, in Florence, Beverly Hills, Tokyo, and Seoul. Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Prada, each having their own as well. Much higher price points though, obviously, and most likely drawing in existing fans of the brands. The goal is to expand their audiences, and again, the café makes this easier. But the brand expansion isn’t stopping there.
Emilia Petrarca wrote a fun piece for Ssense about the rise in fashion brands entering the furniture space. You see LOEWE making lamps, Thom Browne making bed sheets, and everyone making some sort exclusive pieces furniture. Wallpaper* has a great round-up of everything they saw, which is to say, an extensive article ranging from the truly artistic (the aforementioned LOEWE) to the banal (Loro Piano covering Cini Boeri furniture in “fancy” fabrics 🥱).
Toiletpaper Magazine took it a step further and debuted Toiletpaper Living, a maximalist apartment described as “a crazy and extraordinary experience in which the provocative and irreverent images signed by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari are combined with furnishings with a vintage flavor and objects with elegant lines enriched by the right amount of absurdity.” Not sure how I would sleep in this carnival but I love the concept.
The greater shift I see here is that people are getting tired/bored/overwhelmed by the internet and these brands are realizing it. Exhaustion from all the terrible things happening in the world (you must read Kyle’s essay in this week’s Trend Report!) , bots and AI becoming inescapable, or that chronically online post-lockdown burnout, the potential reasons are numerous! We’re all craving real-life things, and too me, brands like these, who have a lot of money to put toward consumer research, seem like a bellwether for where we’re headed.
What do you think? Brands or not, are you ready for more in-person, physical space experiences? What about “quitting” the internet, anyone there yet? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matters.
tokyo in particular have been full blast on exploring lifestyle reach for brands, at least 45+ years at this point. even streetwear collabs were a thing in the early 90s in japan which didnt make it to the US until the mid 00s.