This famed US brand has put another firm footprint on the Middle East’s ever-growing luxury retail market, with a dazzling new Bloomingdale’s emporium in Kuwait City. Covering 93,000 square feet, it has everything from a fragrance theatre to a personalisation lounge, and we’ve designed the guiding light for the store’s state-of-the-art shopping experience.
The flexible lighting scheme is chic, clean and bold, and complements the architectural forms and rich material palette – like the champagne metal joinery that’s made to sparkle and the texture of beautifully crafted wall coverings and oriental carpets.
To create contrast between the merchandise and surrounding areas we used back-lit surfaces in sections like the atrium’s “Takeover Tower”, tight beam angles for drama in eveningwear, and clean lines of light for emphasis throughout. Gigantic bespoke skylights grace the atrium space, shoe gallery and the store’s three entrances – daylight “appears” to flood in, opening the space up beautifully. At the entrances, the skylights’ dynamic white light creates a focal point, and adjustable spotlights form a layer of accent lighting that creates “sparkle” and punches through the ambient illumination.
In the fancy fitting rooms we created different lighting scenes to help customers make those all-important decisions. At the flick of a switch there’s daytime, evening, sculptor and, of course, selfie – here, specifically, high accent illumination to the front of the face and soft diffused light to the surroundings creates the perfect mix of light for a flawless photo. Then, for a different type of “Scene”, there’s the department store’s namesake café, where the lighting has been crafted to suit all times of day and special events.
Images: © Romeo Productions
— Daniel Blaker
