The 20,000 sq. ft Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla flagship, housed in a historic Mumbai building, is a sensory overload. Gilded, oversized birds and clouds hang from the ceiling, the walls are covered with hand-embroidered textiles, a 3D city hangs upside down from the ceiling, complete with brass gopurams. Racks are stacked with chikankari salwar-kameez embellished with semi-precious stones, mirror-work saris, and bright-coloured kurtas with light embroidery, all reiterating the 40-year-old brand’s design vocabulary: unabashed maximalism.
The point of such a fantastical space is that it is hard to ignore or forget. And that is the idea retail stores are chasing.
In less than a year, a clutch of Indian luxury brands, including Sabyasachi, 11.11/eleven eleven, péro and Ekaara, have opened stores across the country where every corner has a visual cue or a story and individual details that tie back to a larger creative theme. The result is a carefully constructed brand world, where the space itself becomes part of the proposition: a reason to stay longer, look around and eventually, buy.
Luxury retail has long understood the power of spectacle. In the West, brands have treated their stores as extensions of their identity, down to details such as a signature store perfume. Indian brands have done versions of this too. Raw Mango’s minimalist spaces of white walls and wooden cupboards, for instance, or Sabyasachi’s evocation of old Kolkata. But these have largely been exceptions. Now, more brands seem to be moving in that direction, with greater attention being paid to the smallest details: Swarovski crystals in the changing room’s upholstery, a live indigo dyeing station, blown-glass hearts set into the floor, Greek sculptures next to the toilet seat, a white life-size shola tree blooming in a corner.
Such attention to detail, of course, extends to the curation of the clothes. As soon as you enter péro’s 1,500 sq. ft store in Lodhi Colony market—its first in the 17 years since the brand was founded—the first rack presents one jacket each from every season since its inception. The brand’s classic shirts, in shades of white, hang from bespoke heart-with-wings hangers, spanning the label’s first-ever collection to the present. None of these pieces are available for purchase anywhere else in the world. A quick walk through the store and you get the idea of the vibe it is trying to sell: whimsical, cute and fun. Out in the 2,500 sq. ft veranda, a permanent café is being set up.
At Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla’s store, called Mubarak Baug, archival pieces sit alongside newer interpretations that have almost no online presence. Ditto at Sabyasachi.
“Our store has the same emotional layering that we have in our couture,” says Sandeep Khosla, whose brainchild Mubarak Baug is. The space was conceptualised and executed by A Wonder Room, the design vertical of Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla, alongside reD Architects Mumbai. “While luxury shopping has always been about touch and feel, there has been a shift in the way it is consumed because of the opportunity to buy something online, and it’s going to increase I think. So it’s becoming more important to give the luxury consumer a very solid reason to come to you.”
The challenge is particularly acute as even high-value purchases move online—you can now buy a ₹1 crore watch with a few clicks. The physical store, therefore, has to offer something a website cannot: a world that is part gallery, part theatre, part social destination.
Come for shopping, stay for the story
In the past few months, Bengaluru-based Swathy Sivaraman, principal architect at Storeyboard Design, has noticed a change in what clients, particularly in the jewellery space, are asking for. They want a “Cartier-like or Bvlgari-like store” but with a twist. “Luxury brands always had money, but that ambition to be seen, to be talked about wasn’t as much as it is today,” says Sivaraman. “And with everyone’s attention span getting shorter, how do you grab a shopper’s attention? You make the experience so personal that it becomes memorable.”
Take Ekaraa’s newest store in Mumbai. On entering, a tree-like glass chandelier dotted with mushrooms immediately commands attention, blocking the view of everything else in the space. Alongside the jewellery displays is a waiting area with crystal-studded bar stools, where visitors can help themselves to drinks, coffee and daily specials from the menu, all complimentary.
In the bridal lounge, customers can try on jewellery with designer outfits hanging around them (the clothes are not for sale) and capture the moment at a specially designed photobooth to see how they might look on their wedding day. From there, the lounge opens on to a ramp, allowing them to complete the experience with a walk down the runway.
“At the end of the day, a retail store is built to sell,” says Sivaraman, who designed the Ekaraa store. “But it is also now about creating that aspiration among others to visit the store just to experience it, and hopefully return to make a purchase.”
There’s also an awareness among brands that consumers can tell the difference between what is just a spectacle and details that feel genuinely considered.
At 11.11/eleven eleven’s Delhi store, a few metres away from péro, drums filled with indigo dye offer a glimpse into the craft behind the clothes on display. Curious about how that dark shade of blue on a shirt you like was achieved? The store attendant will walk you through the dyeing process.
“Experiential retail does not necessarily mean bigger or shinier. It can also mean giving customers something the internet cannot: time, context and a reason to linger,” says Rajiv Parekh, founding partner at reD Architects.
For the shopper, the difference is subtle. A visit that might once have lasted long enough to try something on and swipe a card can now involve looking at archival clothes, asking how a colour was made, sitting down for a glass of wine or walking a runway in jewellery. You may still leave with a shopping bag, but now the store has given you a reason to remember it too.