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he Camper store in El Triangle, a popular
shopping complex in the centre of Barcelona,
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has a new interior. Featuring simple display
benches assembled from recycled wood, a colourful
curtain of shoelaces and hanging lamps of reclaimed metal,
the store recalls the company's retail spaces of a decade
ago, when conceptual (anti-)designer Marti Guixe came up
with his 'Walk in Progress' concept: ad hoc interiors
constructed almost entirely from shoeboxes and old
advertising material, with quirky info-graphics on the walls.
The El Triangle project, however, had a different starting
point. Under the direction of Curro Claret, a Catalan
industrial designer whose projects brim with social
responsibility, the Camper interior was crafted by a group
of homeless men. Chances are some of them have slept
rough very close to the store itself.
Based in Majorca, Camper is one of Spain's most
successful and visually dynamic brands. Its bold red-andwhite logo hangs above the entrances of over 150 shops in
70 countries. The company's roots go all the way back to
1877, when Antonio Fluxa introduced early industrial
methods to a small cobblers' workshop on the island.
Founded in 1975, the year that marked Spain's transition to
democracy, the family-owned enterprise was part of a
The famous name:
Alfredo Haberli does his own,
charismatic thing in Zurich.
creative explosion that rocked the country. Camper's first
model was the Caméléon, a traditional lace-up shoe
originally worn by Majorcan peasant farmers and
reinterpreted for the urban market. This set the tone for
the company's raison d'être, and it has rarely gone off
piste. The brand focus is threefold: a heavy emphasis on
artisanal qualities; a celebration of the easy-going,
Mediterranean lifestyle in all its social and geographical
diversity; and sound eco credentials.
Unlike many other 'green' footwear brands, Camper
has always poured plenty of R&D into the design of both
shoe collections and retail interiors. Pre-Guixé, the stores
were conceived by architect Fernando Amat, one of the
doyens of the Catalan design scene and the owner of
Vinçon, the Barcelonese equivalent of the Conran Shop.
(He also designed the city's Casa Camper, an up-market
hotel that runs on solar power and recycled water.) Amat's
signature - understated elegance expressed by a palette
of slate grey and red - still appears in many Camper
outlets and is the company's most easily recognizable
motif. About half the stores, however, are under the
Camper Together umbrella, a collaborative model in which
independent designers are given a free hand to compose
shop interiors.
'Around 1995, we decided to break the monotony,'
says Miguel Fluxa, current CEO of Camper. 'We started
employing other local designers for the interiors, many of
whom have since become international names, like Javier
Mariscal. About six or seven years ago, we went a step
further and set up Camper Together.'
Camper Together has turned out to be a win-win
adventure for all concerned. Talented participants get to
add a kudos-creating retail environment to their portfolios,
and Camper expands its presence into new and desirable
company's beautifully restored ffnca (private estate) on
Majorca, young French designer Francois Dumas was
asked to transform a shop on Rue du Faubourg Saint
Honoré for Paris Fashion Week. 'At the time, I had no
website and no portfolio to speak of,' says Dumas from
his Eindhoven studio. 'Basically, there were no guidelines,
but I had to work quickly.' The project, which was executed
in three weeks, marked the 20 anniversary of Camper's
arrival in France. Dumas transformed the space using
vibrant display elements made of broom handles handdipped in neon-coloured paint - a metaphor, according to
the designer, for Camper's fusion of industrial and
artisanal techniques.
While there is nothing new in fashion, getting into
bed with the world's starchitects (think Herzog & de
Meuron and Rem Koolhaas for Prada, and Future Systems
for Marni) has proved to be a good move. It must be said,
though, that Camper Together's concept - seemingly
celebrating design for the sake of it - is less contrived and
more spontaneous than that of its predecessors.
Apart from the Casa Camper hotels, other brand
projects include a health-food café and a cult magazine,
giving the impression that if the shoe fits, Camper is willing
to wear it. 'We've always done things that feel right,' says
Clbeda, 'and things that we like. We're lucky that many
others like them too.'
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The social approach:
Curro Claret crafts with the
homeless in Barcelona.
markets. Designers, artists and architects - including
Benedetta Tagliabue, the Campana brothers, Jaime Hayon,
Alfredo Haberli and Jurgen Bey - have signed up, making
the opening of every Camper Together project an event
that is widely covered in the design media. Each designer
generally does about five stores (and often a pair of shoes
to go with them), and their styles vary wildly. Fantasy lands
by Jaime Hayon, for example, feature the Spanish
designer's unmistakable melange of period references and
cheeky, figurative, line-drawn illustrations. Tagliabue,
coauthor of the acclaimed Scottish parliament building,
displays her love of undulating forms with beautifully
sculpted wavelike elements of wood and metal. In Osaka
(and planned for New York's Fifth Avenue store as well),
Japanese studio Nendo used metal rods to suspend shoes
'in midair' within a stark white interior. If anything connects
these projects, it's a sense of irreverence and playfulness
that pokes a stick at high fashion while tenderly beckoning
shoppers to touch and try.
Camper takes an 'organic' approach to decisionmaking, and this includes those invited to participate in
Camper Together. 'It very much depends on our personal
taste,' says Fluxá, 'and on the fact that we are so
connected to the world of design. One thing designers
need is an affinity with the brand.' Does the company's
financial investment in these wickedly clever interiors pay
off in terms of sales? 'It depends on the collection and on
other factors,' he says. 'What Camper Together does
provide is a strong brand identity and a relationship with
diversity - one of our key pillars.'
Ramón Úbeda, the man responsible for these
projects, elaborates: 'Collaborating with designers,
architects and artists has been part of the brand's DNA
since its onset,' he says. 'We have maintained a dialogue
that reaches the public through our product and our
stores. To encourage people to buy, we aim to seduce
rather than coerce.'
It's not just established designers - or Barcelona's
displaced - that get to take part. After attending one of
Camper's summer creative workshops, held in the
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The design-art experiment:
François Dumas gets creative
in Paris.
The Frame Panel
Regular Frame panel
fixture Rodney Fitch,
who established design
consultancy Fitch
in 1972, has been
acclaimed for his work in
retail design, a subject
he currently teaches.
As founder and creative
director of Amsterdambased agency Staat,
Jochem Leegstra
tackles 'branding,
advertising, architecture
and everything in
between'.
©
Rodney Eggleston,
cofounder of March
Studio, lives and works
in Melbourne. His
designs include a string
of inventive signature
stores for Aesop.
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Does it work?
Rodney Eggleston: First, we need
to understand the constraints
that were placed on the designer.
I know this situation well: client
wants shop in three weeks;
designer must make it happen.
This often produces a halfrealized vision, and for that
reason only I think the store is
slightly ad hoc. There seem to be
some circulation and productviewing challenges on the ground
floor. But to throw this together
in three weeks, combined with
the 'Camper comparison'- added
pressure - is a really good result.
Jochem Leegstra: This one
really pops out, as a temporary
installation where fun and
aesthetics meet. It's a smart
idea, like Mikado XXL. The
combination of the uncoloured
wooden objects and the colourful
product simply works. Great
details in the area where the
wooden objects play visually
with the existing wooden floor.
Rodney Fitch: What are the
fundamentals of the Camper store
brand - simplicity, engagement,
localism? Bearing these thoughts
in mind, I'm not so fond of this
Paris project. Camper has made
that classic mistake (we have seen
it elsewhere, with Prada and
others) of allowing the store
designer to dominate, indeed
subjugate, both the brand and the
product with 'display art'. Painted
broom handles, wooden cages,
school-gymnasium wall features
- everything seems designed to
turn the shopper's experience into
an art-gallery visit.
'A nice woody atmosphere,' is how young designer
Francois Dumas describes Love Paris, a celebration of
Camper culture for the city's fashion week. Working in a
three-storey space designed by Alfredo Haberli, Dumas
hand-dipped the ends of 1500 broom handles in brightly
coloured paints, then cut and stapled the dowels to form
displays, including a large 'cage', illuminated floor units
and, on the wall, dramatic 'sunbursts' framing iconic shoes
from the company's archives.
Contact between Camper and Dumas, who had been
experimenting with broomsticks prior to the Paris project,
resulted from the company's artist-in-residence
programme, where he worked on a unisex shoe design
scheduled to appear in Camper shops in the summer of
2014. The materials and methods used to make shoes are
extremely interesting to an industrial designer,' he says.
'It's amazing how important shoes are to so many people.
They are the ultimate hybrid of fashion and design.'
francois-dumas.com
François Dumas dipped the ends
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Shoelace screens and lamps add
movement, colour and humour to
the Interior.
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Catalan industrial designer Curro Claret has collaborated
with Arrels, a Barcelona foundation concerned with the
welfare of the city's homeless, since 2005. At the workshop
he set up for the NGO, homeless people use recycled
materials to make simple pieces of furniture. When this
initiative caught the eye of Camper, the company asked
Claret to adapt the essence of the Arrels project for a
Together store in central Barcelona.
'They were interested in using recycled materials for
a project with a strong social nature,' says Claret. In the
Arrels workshop, found pieces of wood became display
benches for the store. Shoelace curtains and pendant
lamps of recycled metal add movement and colour to the
interior. Artist Miquel Fuster, once a vagrant himself,
documented the process; blow-ups of his graphical
narrative sketches adorn the walls of the store. 'I think the
project has afforded an interesting experiment and a great
experience for the workers,' says Claret, pointing out that
the men were paid well for their time and that part of the
budget went into the continuation of the Arrels workshop.
curroclaret.com
'Camper was interested in using recycled
materials for a project with a strong social
nature,' says Curro Claret.
Does it work?
Rodney Eggleston: A unique
approach to a Camper store, or
any store for that matter. At first
the concept made me think,
shamefully, of Mugatu's Derelicte
campaign from the film
Zoolander. In both cases, I had to
come to terms with the idea of
homelessness and fashion
intertwined. It is dangerous
territory. Thankfully, the design
wins over the conceptual
framework, and it feels like a
relaxed, easy environment to be
in. The bleacher stands have a
good personality and seem to
function as you'd expect in a shoe
store. I'm also fond of the
shoelace wall.
Jochem Leegstra: Great
story behind the store. Love the
simple and honest designs of
Curro Claret, including this
collaboration with the city's
homeless. In terms of the visual
world of Camper, this feels more
like a social responsibility-driven
idea than a typical Camper design
statement. But the simplicity of
the (recycled) yellow benches and
tables and the colourful shoelace
installations really works.
Rodney Fitch: The essence of
the design challenge seems to be:
can we deliver an elegant,
on-brand Camper store using
found materials and homeless
artisans? I can't think of another
fashion brand that could explore
this question and capture the
Zeitgeist with such authenticity
and such positive results. The
design approach is direct, the
result simple and unadorned.
Quintessentially Camper with
some nice touches, such as the
shoelace screen and drawings
that record the making - a lovely
contemporary idea.
«
With Layar, watch Spanish
1 philosopher Fernando Savater
I] talk to Camper about happiness
* and imagination
The severity of the interior's cubic
composition offsets the organic
form of the shoes on display.
As Camper began to expand internationally, the company
came to the realization that the world's shopping hubs
share a high degree of similarity, which dilutes local
character. This sameness is a major reason for the
diversity of Camper Together retail environments.
Designers collaborating with Camper often work on
projects close to home, a strategy that allows them to
inject familiar vernacular influences into their retail
concepts. Such is the case with Alfredo Haberli, a
charismatic designer born in Argentina and based in
Zurich, where Camper wanted to introduce a new outlet.
Haberli drew inspiration from the city's avant-garde
Allianz Cultural Foundation and its Museum of
Constructivist Art, a Ziirich landmark. Working in a small
low-ceilinged space, he translated Allianz's preference for
colourful geometric abstraction into a cubic composition
whose severe geometry offsets the organic form of the
shoes on display. His solution hides the irregular walls and
unattractive period details of the existing space, while
paying homage to an important art movement with strong
ties to Switzerland.
Alfredo Häberli's Camper Together
store in Zürich pays tribute to the
city's deep involvement in the
constructivist art movement.
alfredo-haeberli.com
Does it work?
Rodney Eggleston: It's refreshing
to see Alfredo Haberli break new
ground rather than ride on the
back of Camper's past glories.
The store bucks the trend of the
exquisitely detailed white box,
which Camper has recently rolled
out through Nendo and Alonso.
Instead, it's quite the opposite.
It's a box of colour, with no fussy
details at all. The abstracted
'quilt' of colour consumes the
entire space. This is maximum
impact with minimal (built)
effort - an all-encompassing
solution, including the ceiling,
of the kind I like.
Jochem Leegstra: Great
colourful
work, a graphic take on trompe
l'oeil. What is a volume? Where
is colour? The combination of
architecture and graphics, 3D
and 2D, is an area where a lot
of things can happen - look at the
work of 2x4 and Rem Koolhaas
for Prada. This Camper store
design plays with forms and
rhythm, proportions and
non-volumes.
Rodney Fitch: I find
this
Zurich interior unusually
one-dimensional. Yes, it's simple,
but in my opinion the colourful
geometric 'cubism' is overdone
and overpowering. Unrelieved
and without any pace, this 'all
over', rather bullying solution
lacks discipline and is dominant
to the point of becoming boring.
This again is at the expense of the
product and the shopper
experience. If I were to advise
Camper on its Camper Together
project, I'd tell them to keep
control - you, not the designer,
own the brand!