COCCOLE BIMBI
RETAIL
Coccole Bimbi was born in Puglia in 1989 as a small children's clothing store.
Today it represents an important reality on the territory and an international representative organization for the "kids fashion system". The new Coccole Bimbi is a luxury store far from the center of the city, in a bigger place to accommodate business management and sales activities. We are in an old dismantled repair shop in the production area of Rutigliano (Bari).
The dark shades of the outside are contrasted with the blue of the sky and the white of the clouds on the "tower"; this wall is designed to capture the attention of bystanders and to become the background of "social" photos. At the entrance, however, fifteen concrete cylinders of various heights and placed on the nodes of an imaginary grid, reinterpret the theme of the playground.
The interior is a big white box divided into three different areas: shop, logistic, offices.
Anyway what we discover is a metropolitan microcosm that speaks of fashion and mix different languages: art, design, and happening. The industrial concrete floor, which does not hide the time marks, there is a big gray star on the doorstep that invites people to enter. Seven different areas have been identified and designed, according to different criteria and styles, each destined to a specific category of goods.
A colorful wooden and tulle structure invites visitors to discover the space pointing to the first exhibition area where wood and plants (ferns and cocos nucifera) describe a postmodern jungle in which swings take the place of lianas.
The materials chosen for the "street" area are the raw iron for the hangers and the neon tubes to create amazing play of light.
A rhomboid room, dedicated to special collections, stands in the middle of the space and immediately catches the attention. Externally it looks like a large white box, but it is entering that you feel the vibrant sense of astonishment given by the intense shades of pink, blue, purple and yellow. The hanger system is dynamic and integrated into the walls through three openings of different shape. The "wow" effect is, however, given by the big papier-mâché shark that seems to swim undisturbed above us.
A stakes forest, the architectural details of the lodges and the sloping roof reveal a typical mountain landscape inside an industrial depot. The fitting rooms, warm and welcoming, are carefully designed and featured just like all the space, becoming an attraction for kids. The area dedicated to the newborn babies is made by the revisited old furnishing system from the previous store.
The graphic composition on the wall use, for example, the bamboo around the word ”baby" written with neon tubes.
A long counter belonging to an important historic family of the city of Bari serves as a table and cash desk.
Behind it, the wallpaper, specially designed for the shop, frames the last of the exhibition areas.
Coccole Bimbi is an evolving space that, reinforcing its image of living space, stimulating and dedicated to the experimentation, leads to the creation of new styles and trends, in the fashion field of course, but not only.
