Previously known as J:Gallery, a hybrid lifestyle concept in Shanghai known to pair retail and hospitality, it has not only taken on a new identity, but also boasts fully revamped premises. Now baptized Blank, it has dropped the restaurant to fully focus on women’s fashion that’s presented in sleek understated settings by Hangzhou-based design studio An. The store occupies a retail space of 500 sqm. (1,640 sq.ft.) spread across two floors at Xintiandi Style, a newer section of the plush Xintiandi shopping district in the heart of the city. The expansive floor-to-ceiling windows on street level reveal a seemingly levitating wall that shields much of the interior. Inside, an elongated terrazzo table, adorned with a chunk of inlaid yellow glass, takes centre stage, and serves as both as a product display and as bar or table at in-house parties and events. Situated directly behind it, running along the back wall, is a bar crafted from terrazzo and copper, and it comes with faucets and a small sink. The setting is framed by concrete walls, flooring and ceiling that allows the monumental furnishings and fixtures to pop. A sculptural staircase adds more visual drama, and leads up to Blank‘s second floor where the volumes of downstairs are replicated in a different form and configuration. Serving as both partitions and shelving, they create separate sections for the store’s curated product range. The futuristic sales counter is crafted from polished concrete. Similarly to downstairs, the retail setting is shielded, and here it’s by boards covered in corrugated steel. For the boutique’s most discerning clientele, a V.I.P. salon is readily available across the corridor that separates it from the retail space upstairs. Blank carries apparel, accessories, shoes and jewelley pieces by a string of independent designers from across the planet, including Aleksandr Manamis, Cherevichkotchviki, Marc le Bihan, Empress 47 and Delada.
Blank
Xintiandi Style, 245 Madang Lu, Shop L113-114 (Xintiandi)
200020 Shanghai
Telephone: +86 21 64810556
Publishers Note
Just to be clear – superfuture® is a design blog and not a political commentator. No surprise there. The scope of our content has always been global and borderless, however that can often mean covering projects in countries where we will not agree with the politics or actions of those countries. In a world that’s as screwed up as ever right now, the focus of our support is to those designers, architects and other creatives who aim to make the world a more liveable one – as opposed to people that try their hardest to destroy it. So if a project hits our desk and we like it based on its design credentials, we may choose to publish regardless of its location or creators nationality. superfuture® has always been inclusive and hopes for all current wars, aggression, violence, hate and extremism to end.
