Founded only in 2017 by Chen Hao, a 35-year old American-trained serial entrepreneur, NOME (pron.: no-mi) has emerged as the go-to address for homeware goods, apparel, shoes and other products. Interestingly, the design is executed by a team of independent and also acclaimed Swedish designers. Indeed, given the range of merchandise and distinct design focus, a comparison with Japanese retailer MUJI isn’t farfetched. Based in Guangzhou, the company has gained a huge popularity and has now expanded across the entire, densely populated, Pearl River Delta – mind you, this is the planet’s biggest metropolitan area in the making – with a continuously growing number of outposts to meet the voracious demand of its aspiring middle class demographic. Hao’s latest endeavour, NOME Archive, seems like a further upgrade of not only the brand’s retail operations, but more importantly, the branding. The new design-led concept store can be found at Grandview, one of Guangzhou‘s leading shopping centres. Occupying a triangular 460 sqm. (4,951 sq.ft.) unit on the second floor, it’s actually the site of the brand’s very first retail space.
The chosen aesthetic, designed by Shanghai-based architecture and design practice atelier xy, takes the store’s triangular shape as a departure point, and sees it divided into a central area, and separate areas for apparel and beauty & makeup. The latter two sections are marked by a backlit vaulted ceiling, bare concrete walls, polished concrete flooring, and matching furnishings crafted from metal and wood. The adjacent central area, dedicated to daily necessities, sits below a suspended grid of mesh panels and tubular lights which add a slight futuristic dynamic to the setting. This section of the NOME Archive store sees a grid layout of modular cabinets in a variety of heights and sizes, one side featuring a bright yellow interior, and the other side a light blue interior, both in a variety of configurations. This set-up allows a flexible merchandise display, easily allowing products to be highlighted, but also placing storage features either at the top and bottom of the cabinets. The beauty and makeup area features wall-mounted cabinets clad in shiny metal, in addition to cabinets in a matte grey hue. The newly opened NOME Archive store carries a tightly curated collection of 1,750 products in 15 different categories, including an entire wall with a newly launched line of aromatherapy products.
NOME Archive
Grandview, 228 Tianhe Lu, Shop 2C076-81 (Tianhe)
510620 Guangzhou
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.
