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Client: Brett Johnson
Where: Dubai / UAE
Date: September 2021 – February 2022
Responsibilities: Concept design, Interior architecture, furniture design, styling, construction control
Team: Deniz Galip with Yigit Öğütoğulları and İpek Yelekçi

Located in-between the world’s top luxury brands boutiques, the first monobrand boutique of our long time client Brett Johnson, won the Luxury lifestyle awards 2022 for Best Luxury Retail  Interior Design  in Dubai, UAE.

The initial brief that we received was to evoke an emotion that reflected chic, modern and luxurious feeling that embodies the Brett Johnson brand. This meant infusing elements from Brett’s home in Virginia and merging it with a dynamic mix of our shared love and passion for centuries honed Italian architecture.

The windows and the exterior façade design was one of our main focuses since the conception, as they are the first attraction point for brand’s clientele. Brett, who is a luxury African-American designer desired for the façade to tell a story thus leading us to land on false perspective storefront, which provided an architectural metaphor about how black designers are perceived. Apart from that the tall fluted limestone pillars with the antiqued mirrors in the middle point of the store, reminiscent of classic ancient Roman pillars, yet translated in a contemporary way by lighting effects, highlight the brand’s spirit. Lastly we wanted to create a warm and luxurious environment where clients would be pleased to both lounge and shop which we achieved thanks to immense research and development of lighting and the use of custom furniture that were thoughtfully curated together with Brett. Our main challenge was to be able to establish a unique and original design that can stand tall amongst the extensive array of luxury brands surrounding the boutique. Timing and organisation of the project has been another great challenge with Brett being based in USA, us in Istanbul and the boutique in Dubai.