New Work: The Selfridges London Debut of Aldo Rise
Fashion shoe brand Aldo asked Pentagram’s Daniel Weil to create both the main entrance windows and a pop-up store for the Selfridges launch of the Aldo Rise initiative, a bold collaboration with daring new talent in the fashion industry.
Collaborating with partner Naresh Ramchandani, Weil has created a display concept that runs through both the windows and pop-up store.
The windows elevate the shoes to the level of sculpture with 12-inch-long translucent models of the shoes created in 3D through stereo lithography, placed on lampshade-like plinths to create both illumination and an elevated setting. The plinths resemble branches in a geometrical structure that finds its inspiration in the letter forms in the name ‘Aldo.’
The windows needed to be promotionally dynamic as well as elegant, and the shoes and branch sculptures flank a vertical set of three screens positioned in the centre of each window. The screens show dynamic typography-based videos created by Naresh Ramchandani and directed by Christian Carlsson in which the spirit and ethos of each shoe designer and of Aldo Rise fluidly ascend in a modern twist on cinematic credits.
Typographic video that appears on a screen in the window display.
Typographic video that appears on a screen in the window display.
The windows also connected thematically and graphically with the pop-up store that became a focus for Aldo Rise experience in the Selfridges Shoe Galleries. More on that next week.