JW Anderson flagship store, Soho
Following our collaboration with British fashion designer JW Anderson for the exhibition Disobedient Bodies at Hepworth Wakefield in 2017, we have completed the brand's first flagship store from two addresses on the corner of Brewer and Wardour Street in Soho, London.
JW Anderson has a long history of embracing and promoting diversity and queer culture with an intelligent approach to non-binary fashion. Soho was a natural home for the label, away from the genteel luxury of other shopping streets, instead embracing a history of counterculture and dissent. 6a’s design responds specifically to the world of Soho, to its late-night life, collision of high and low culture, humour and diversity in retail. It celebrates the vernacular shopfronts that have emerged over the last 50 years, in most cases non-designed and now inseparable from the neighbourhood.
Originally two separate stores, the new JW Anderson flagship is combined into one, but 6a retains a trace of the two addresses with distinct façade treatments. Both shopfronts are clad with custom aluminium fluting, a reference to the Italian cafes that once populated the neighbourhood. Colourful neon signs are a nod to the architectural spirit of Soho, its nightlife and the Las Vegas Arcade next door.
Inside, the original stores are delineated with different materials, colours and a fragment of a staircase that once lead to the offices above, now appropriated for display. The Wardour Street “shop” is a light and airy exhibition-like space with high ceilings, bright floors and modular aluminium shelving that acts both as a store and display for products. This space will showcase special collaborations and projects from the brand. The Brewer Street side feels as though you’ve entered a tailor’s shop on Saville Row but with a Soho twist: faux wood veneer is clad over walls and furniture, cabinets lined with brass trim and colourful Formica and inlaid JWA Anchor logos.
Descending into the lower level a thick cream-coloured, shaggy carpet lines the room with a white leather daybed surrounded by hanging curtains in similar hues. Leather wrapped steel rails suspend a range of JW Anderson’s menswear, womenswear and accessories. On one wall hangs The Prude, a artwork from a series by Anthea Hamilton at Kettles Yard that explores 70’s and 80’s masculinity and was an early touchstone for the project.
