KYOTO, JAPAN, 5 February 2024 – CHARLES & KEITH is pleased to announce its partnership with David Chipperfield Architects Milan. In the lead up to the unveiling of CHARLES & KEITH’s new Tokyo flagship — slated for Q1 2024 — the brand recently opened doors to its Kyoto boutique, showcasing the genesis of the collaboration.

The duplex store is located in Shijo-dori, the iconic shopping belt that runs East to West through the heart of Japan’s cultural capital.

“The design intent of the project was to form a space with sculptural qualities that does not overwhelm but rather embraces and enhances the brand’s products, defining a sober and elegant environment where the furniture shares a symbiosis with the architecture,” said Giuseppe Sirica, Associate Director at David Chipperfield Architects Milan.

The walls, composed of panels sprayed with lime-based plaster, define the rough backdrop for the products that are displayed on recycled aluminium shelves integrated into a sequence of niches. Floors in semi-polished reconstructed stone generate a contrast with the roughness of the walls, defining a consistent albeit expressive context for the merchandise. The ceiling in plaster is enlivened by a
continuous organic profile from where diffused linear lighting embraces the space and spotlights focus on the merchandise.

A series of coloured resin shelves are juxtaposed with this essential family of aluminium display pieces, highlighting the store’s special collections. Display tables in translucent carmine-red and emerald-green resins create an ornamental effect that is further enhanced by rounded sofas in a rich burgundy fabric, inviting customers to try on the brand’s shoes on the store’s second floor.

The store’s lower façade acts as a decorative filter between its interior and exterior and is formed of glazed ivory-coloured Italian terracotta tiles that are overlapped to generate a three-dimensional surface. In contrast and separated by a canopy is the upper façade, which has been kept simple to reveal the authenticity of the existing building – one of the few typical Kyoto shophouses left on the street – with a rough Japanese plaster finish adding character to the surface.