Founded little over a decade ago by Guillaume Philibert, Amsterdam-based sneaker brand Filling Pieces has gone leaps and bounds, gaining numerous points of sale across the planet, including some of the most coveted depositories across the planet. Well-rooted in global urban culture, the brand has successfully paired street credibility with commercial success, using collaborations and activations along the way to create a distinctive edge in a highly competitive industry. As any self-discerning brand, Filling Pieces has now entered the retail arena with a branded standalone store in the Dutch capital’s scenic Canal District. Designed by Daniele Misso, the brand’s art director, the store aims to project a brand vision and a unique shopping experience, paying homage to cult bookstore MENDO, the location’s previous tenant, along the way.
The latter element is represented by floor-to-ceiling shelving lining one side of the store, albeit in black steel rather than black-tinted timber. The store’s front section is open and uncluttered, serving as an anteroom of sorts for the actual trophy-filled retail space up the flight of stairs. Also, it embodies the store’s intention to become an interactive platform to exchange ideas and experiences between different entities. Furnishings include pieces by Rotterdam-baaed French designer Johan Viladrich, and most notably, a digital reproduction of Alexandros of Antioch’s iconic sculpture Venus de Milo. Put on display especially for the store opening, it has been created by Swedish artist Mikaela Steby Stenfalk who used more than 62,000 images found under the hashtag #venusdemilo and merged them into a new digital original.
Large windows allow floods of daylight into the store’s back section, and quite similarly, furnishings are sparse, seeing more of Viladrich’s sleek clothing racks, displays in a variety of shapes and materials, a seating area, and concealed behind retractable mirror doors, an all-blue dressing room. Rows of suspended linear light fixtures and matching flooring unify the two separate shop sections. The Filling Pieces store stocks the full range of men’s and women’s sneakers, in addition to exclusive releases. Additionally, the store will display artistic collaborations and works by various international artists and designers. Mind you, this store is just a pre-taster as a much bigger Filling Pieces store is scheduled to open later this year only a few blocks away.
Filling Pieces
Berenstraat 11
1016GG Amsterdam (Centrum)
Mon-Wed 11-7
Thu 11-9
Fri-Sat 11-7
Sun 12-7
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.
