The Ayo Van Elmar Fashion Cafe is a peculiar retail mix that combines food and beverage with fashion and design.
Designed and fitted out by Lagos-based Interior Designers, Isio De La Vega Design Studio (IDDS Interiors), the fashion cafe blends modern materials and style, with more traditional or “eclectic” elements to create a unique space that is classy and aspirational.
DESIGNER’S DESCRIPTION
Our brief was to create a fashion café, a place where a customer could have meetings, have great coffee, tea, salads and sandwiches and be able to admire and buy Afro-European outfits for men and women.
The client wanted a fusion of modern and eclectic design using the existing structure to our advantage while maintaining the structures’ advantages. Instead of stripping the structure bare, we decided to create a design fusion of dark and light schemes that harmonized with the brown, bamboo flooring and complimented the client’s fashion designs. We covered the partition for the changing room in full length mirrors that opened up the space, and most importantly, we custom-made a fully-functional industrial bar that served as a private area for staff and a mini-storage section.
IMAGES © ISIO DE LA VEGA DESIGN STUDIO
The bar was made of two-tone wood panels and granite with a glass façade which served as the menu board and behind the bar were the suspended shelves in gold which were installed against a full-length glass window. We also created a 4.5m long base cabinet for storage in chestnut brown wood.
Because we had an open plan space that was to serve as a multi-purpose commercial space, we wanted to maintain that free-flowing, airy feel, and so we didn’t put up any barriers in the middle of the store or separate the space with walls, screens and partitions or heavy furniture. As a focal piece, we designed and hexagon display unit with 8 drop-down shelves and an inner-elevation to showcase special merchandise.
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