Two new and very different retail outlets opened in Dublin last week, and the sheer style and high quality of their interiors shows just how sophisticated commercial fit-outs have become.
And with each fit-out costing about £500,000 it's clear that meeting consumer expectations of a special shopping environment doesn't come cheap. Blueriu is a slick beauty emporium on South William Street that is light and airy with a chic contemporary feel, while Berry Bros & Rudd is an old-style wine merchants with the ambience of a gentleman's club.
Both are in leasehold premises, both are the same size, at 3,000 sq ft, and both come with some interesting original features that gives them an instant sense of character. Blueriu is at the up-and-coming Wicklow Street end of South William Street. The beauty shop's owner, Pat O'Brien, had already begun work on another premises on a nearby street when he noticed this outlet and was drawn to it because of its natural light. Like so many ground floor retail premises in Dublin city centre, the shop is long and narrow, punctuated by pillars, with a large angular roof light two-thirds of the way down.
"Natural light was such a plus and it fits in with the whole philosophy of the shop," says Mr O'Brien. "After that, the brief was to create a sense of space and calm." He gave well-known architect Mary Donoghue a budget of around £600,000 to turn the former pine furniture shop into an oasis of calm. The budget was to cover all construction and the fit out.
The shop is divided into three sections. At the front, there is an upmarket florist, the largest section in the middle is pure retail and there are two beauty treatment rooms at the back. The florist probably seems the quirkiest element in the mix, but Mr O'Brien points out that all the diverse ranges of beauty products sold in the store come from flowers, so really it was a particularly logical extension of the product offering. The floor unifies the entire space. It is made from American reclaimed walnut and a line of blue floor-lights starts at the door and leads down to the back of the shop, where a counter is framed by walls made from blue glass blocks.
Elsewhere, the walls are painted white punctuated with recessed units with glass shelves. These have walnut and glass storage cupboards at ground level.
More shelving and display units dot the floor, and intriguingly, three of these incorporate a tropical fish tank. A much larger tank filled with coral and exotic fish is behind the counter to the front of the shop giving the place an instant sense of calm. The ceiling is dotted with halogen down-lighters and New Age music is piped through white speakers high up on the walls.
A couple of hundred yards away on Harry Street, off Grafton Street, is Berry Bros & Rudd, a firm of long-established London wine merchants who spotted the potential of the old Dublin Corporation Weights and Measures Office.
By their own admission, they spotted it a little too late, because ideally they would have preferred to have bought the building: by the time they came upon it, it had already been bought by engineer Ciaran Fahy. They subsequently leased it from him and spent £500,000 and the past five months fitting it out. They wanted to create a comfortable, clubby atmosphere in the striking 1880s redbrick building.
The main retail level has been divided into small interconnecting rooms. The walls have been painted a rich red and the wine is on shelving units made from reclaimed Irish pitch pine that has naturally aged to a rich dark colour.
This was a fit-out with a difference, because it involved input from Dublin Corporation and the Dublin Civic Trust, who wanted to ensure that the landmark Victorian building kept a strong sense of its original character. Ann-Marie O'Neill from Duffy Design worked on the fit-out and she has managed to reclaim interesting old elements of the interior, such as the three fireplaces in the shop, and mix them with newer fittings, including the new panelled ceiling that has been cleverly aged so that it seems as original as the exposed redbrick walls. The space is on three levels. A main retail level of 1,000 sq ft, a temperature-controlled wine cellar at basement level and two woodpanelled interconnecting rooms on the first floor, which will be used for private wine tastings.
"The biggest expense on a job like this is the joinery," says Ms O'Neill. Indeed, it is the extensive use of reclaimed wood that gives the shop its delightfully cosy feel. Lighting, she felt, was also a crucial element in the successful completion of the job, so it has been kept subtle and atmospheric. This is particularly noticeable in the cellar, where copper down-lighters have been mounted in the walls at near ground level.
Anyone attempting to recreate the appearance of an old interior always comes upon the dreaded bric-a-brac problem, but no one can say that this wine shop features anything but the real thing. At the back of shop is an exhibition area showing the original brass weights and measures, including intricate weighing scales and dials that were used on the premises for over 100 years. They are on loan to the shop from Dublin Corporation.
