As the e-tail industry grows, luring consumers not only through the charm of convenience but also increasingly seductive (and clever) creative conduct, the fight on the other side of the commercial fence - the high street - also gets fiercer. As online commerce expands so proportionately does the necessity for the real-time, physical spaces that do remain to be more special, more stimulating and ultimately more engaging in order to stay convincingly relevant.

 

<img src="body2">For many businesses it’s the pincer movement, the dual push to bag both markets that remains key to self-preservation and heightened creativity on a spatial level has therefore become the next bastion of survival.

 

<img src="body1">It’s a prospect acknowledged by the Creative team known as Johnny Buttons (Johnny Brophy, ex long-term visual merchandising director for superbrand Diesel, and partner Simon Browning, a Creative with extensive experience in both the music & lifestyle industries such as Ministry of Sound & Playstation) whose creative blueprint may well be laying the future foundations of retail, and branding in general, as digitalisation rolls on.

 

As Brophy puts it, “After being institutionalised inside a global brand for just less than ten years” the decision to leave and found an integrated agency where he could “indulge his passion for design, interiors, fashion, textiles, furniture and craft” was easy.

Browning consolidates the commercial sense in this by saying “we’d both (in their separate fields) been navigating a volatile market, it seemed as though opportunities existed as a lot of brands were realigning their operations”.

 

A recent (and very key) collaborative partner is the brand Wrangler for whom they’ve worked on several unique concepts including a pop-up store for their premium line, Bluebell, where they sanded back 10 years of black gloss from the floorboards to reveal the original wood floors, used traditional gilding sign writing methods and sourced a vast array of vintage pieces, which they then embellished, to develop an environment which was not only visually intriguing on a an experimental level but which clearly underlined the traditional skills and high level of craftsmanship which underpin that specific collection. 

 

Another brand whose ethos they’ve successfully channelled is Dover Street Market, the hybrid London store famed for it’s creative collaborations and avant-garde fashion following when (on behalf of Art-loving restaurateurs ‘Les Trois Garcons’) they created ‘Future of Black’.

A 2.5m exotically configured, sculpted octopus window installation inspired by the unusual antiques and visual curios (including a decent amount of taxidermy) which typify LTG’s style ‘Future of Black’ not only providing an arresting front-piece but made the budding synergy between the store and it’s temporary tenants clear for all to see.

The visuals are one layer, playing the space to simultaneously articulate a developing language, thus giving the project legs, is another.

 

What Johnny Buttons do is dispel the formulaic, tried and tested notions of textbook visual merchandising choosing instead bespoke creative solutions, forming which are tantamount to stealth advertising. Brophy says; “the store is an advertising space, prime time advertorial and each element should enhance the story. Those brands that engage in the notion of brand extension and provide above the normal will last”.

 

A favourite project came, ironically  (or perhaps fittingly) whilst Brophy was still working in-house at Diesel HQ when Brophy was part of a team who transformed a vast, industrial space in Florence into a futuristic, underwater-style vessel to showcase the brands newest collection.

Using bespoke staging and rigging, projection, a complex lighting system, sound effects, and an army of 80 black gloss mannequins compounded an understanding of how the right creative vision manifested within a tangible, walkable space can speak a thousand words, inspire a loyal following, trigger a legion of sales.

 

Johnny Button’s spatial manipulations simultaneously position them in the enviably contentious position of both the antichrist and possibly the saviours of visual merchandising, depending on which side of the fence you professionally sit.

For those engaged with the conventional industry, whose unspoken rules keep the client/supplier equilibrium intact, ensuring the carefully governed monopolies remain true to the traditional status quo the prospect of satellite teams from outside the industry infiltrating previously carefully governed territory is a scary one.

For those with/able to cast a more visionary eye ready to embrace the mutual benefits of a galaxy of peripheral Artists, Artisans, Craftspeople (generally Creatives of a different order) and allowing talents like Brophy & Browning who are able to work in a less scripted way it’s an exciting time.

 

The crux is that Visual Merchandising as a discipline now has everything to do with the visual and less (at least directly) with merchandising. The more luxury the brand the more evident with stores like Barneys in New York, producing Christmas windows for 2009 without a single piece of product on display, proving that communicating brand message through store space is the focus, far outweighing the product itself.

 

Retail is of course just one element of the Buttons repertoire but as one of the great British leisure activities and increasingly (as self-styled retail guru Mary Portas claims) being recognised as a critical third space beyond our work and living environments it’s highly viable one, bearing witness to possibly the largest and most visible arena in popular culture. To achieve success on such an accessible creative platform, within spaces which can at once be populist and elitist, is to truly wield great power.

 

Amanda Carr, Senior Editor (Store Design & VM) at WGSN believes the shift towards heightened creativity partly comes from the advent, about two years ago, of Art pushing through into retail (via stores like B-store & Oki-ni, both situated on Savile row in London) “subverting the idea of VM, in a larger context, making it much sexier”.

Those stores were keenly aware of the value of Art – and Artists - in both validating and expanding the store experience, generating excitement. Fashion particularly is about the thrill of the new and it’s something she believes that people like Brophy & Browning are at the forefront of, the slow up-take leaving them streets ahead.

“The appreciation of in-store space is the biggest differential in the homogenous retail world,” says Carr “and because of the relatively low appreciation right now there’s a skill deficit. With a global eye on the industry I believe there’s a gaping void in terms of people who have the skills to understand the connection between the consumer and the space. We have more technology in our handbags than retailers can put in store now so in the absence of technology (for multiple retailers especially) they have to be crafty – to keep up they need staff (like Johnny Buttons) that can deliver at the level consumers need. They’re part of a new generation of retail Creatives who’ve come with their own rules”.

 

For clients dealing with multiple brands an invaluable aspect of the Buttons portfolio of talents is their mercurial ability to add a secondary (or even tertiary) spin to enliven spaces, which have been over-used and therefore under-estimated.

 

Debbie Cartwright, co-Founder & Director of forward-thinking PR agency IPR (representing brands such as Jas MB, Firetrap, PRPS denim) has worked with the team regularly including their press 2010 review in November 09 where Brophy/Browning created a ‘Colette’ style space within the industrial environment of habitual PR haunt The Vinyl Factory in Soho, London – delivering a unique setting to deliver up each of the 18 individual brands with their unique personalities intact, whilst creatively summarising their roles within IPR package. 

Cartwright (who originally worked with Brophy & Browning – in separate, pre Buttons guises) suggests it’s their panoramic vision, as well as Brophy’s “special creative eye” that makes them unique.

“Johnny works in the same 360 degree with brands that I do. Whether in a retail or any other communications environment he always has a tailored solution. Johnny Buttons has effectively become an extended part of our team”.

 

Brophy and Browning clearly see themselves as diversionists. The dialogue’s that they create via their satellite network of specialists are new and therefore exciting, the idea of creative interference the key to their philosophy.

All businesses with a physical, visual dimension, needing to make a tangible creative imprint are fair game and the spaces where those businesses converge (needing to be communicated to the outside world) particularly so.

“The personal interference and involvement by artists and craftsmen is the point of difference.  Conventional VM can often be oversaturated with disposable props/materials.  For us it’s about carefully curated experiences allowing people and brands to interact together and I think the same process can be applied outside the retail realm.  Why not apply the same to a commissioned interior project, set design, photo-shoots or music videos.  These are all areas, we believe, we can contribute to.”

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