London-based creative agency, Dalziel & Pow, has collaborated with Primark to take its first step into the US market with an innovative flagship store in Boston. Occupying a 77,000sqft site inside Boston’s Burnham Building, formerly home to the city’s department store, Filene’s, the store is the first of eight planned across northeast America over the coming year. Dating from 1912, the building’s historic architecture has been sympathetically restored and enhanced by Dalziel & Po
ow’s design concept, retaining original features, including windows, exposed brickwork, and terracotta ceilings.
Dalziel & Pow has previously worked with retailers such as River Island, John Lewis, and Debenhams, while locally the agency has partnered with Target Australia for its new store concept, and will join forces with department store, David Jones, next month.
The creative agency played a strategic role in this project, applying the brand in a new territory with limited recognition, ensuring clear expression of fashion and value for the brand.
The customer journey begins with a ‘Hello Boston’ mural in the lobby, illustrating Primark locations around the world as part of the brand’s international fashion story, and one of several original art features in the store.
Others include decorative fret-cut panels, applied to cash desks across all levels and designed to express the department they are within. The ‘Kids’ panel features a playful and colourful interpretation of the Boston skyline.
Cutting edge elements
Upon arrival, customers are greeted by a collection of mannequins raised high into the generous space, as if bringing the pages of a fashion editorial into 3D. Located behind the mannequins is a high definition digital LED ribbon that both interacts with the visual merchandise and leads the customer’s attention up the escalator to the store’s upper levels.
With a constantly changing sequence of bespoke content, the digital display establishes something new and exciting for customers to discover on every level, while also highlighting ‘hot product’. Another key feature is the 1000sqft ‘Trend Room’, which curates the latest products and looks. The store in store concept, made with time poor fashion conscious customer in mind, boasts 530 mannequins, 73 cash registers, and 84 fitting rooms in a bid to minimise waiting time.
There are also dedicated seating areas throughout the entire store, as well as charging stations, and free Wi-Fi.
Digital screens also display not only the global story of Primark, but shout outs from Primark’s user generated online fashion playground, ‘Primania’, encouraging customers to join the conversation beyond the store’s walls.
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