lakme salon retail design by shanoo bhatia from india

Lakme, an iconic Indian brand symbolising a contemporary Indian interpretation of beauty, needed a retail facelift to resonate with their brand personality. After having successfully created standalone retail hardware for modern trade, we worked the brief into the larger context of an experience for a captive audience within a branded environment. The brief was to create a new dynamism for the brand expression, capturing the spirit of the global Indian woman. Our concept was inspired from the Mandala, which represents ‘wholeness’, the pattern of creation and the dichotomy and balance of the masculine and feminine. We used the concept as a springboard to a contemporary design requirement. The geometry of the Mandala, the order and symmetry, resonates with energy achieving a wholeness and balance in the explosion of the original rigid geometry to create flexible forms. Our design works on multiple levels - while maintaining the must-have hygiene levels through well detailed interior spaces with resilient maintenance friendly materials, we focussed on the customer’s feeling and interaction with the brand. We introduced concepts unique to Lakme, such as a semi-transparent exterior facade allowing a glimpse into a modern salon, to taking the hair stations off the walls and creating island style stations for stylists to fuss over their customers and surround them with rich brand visuals.