South Korean cosmetics brand Tamburins has been making waves for quite some time with an innovative product line that resonates strongly with a demographic of savvy young consumers at home, and increasingly, also abroad. Affiliated with coveted eyewear brand Gentle Monster, which already is a global player, Tamburins also bets heavily on experiential retail, and has opened a string of highly evocative retail spaces across Seoul. As of late, the brand has transformed the location of its ephemeral space in the city’s fast-emerging shopping area of Seongsu – mind you, we’ve covered the pop-up in a previous post – into a full-fledged flagship. Situated across the street from Dior’s glittering pop-up store, which we’ve also covered in a previous post, the Tamburins flagship store couldn’t feature a more contrasting design. Created by its in-house design team, the four-storey building has been entirely gutted, if not demolished, leaving nothing but its bare concrete frame.
The chosen design theme, dubbed Garden of Unfamiliar Forms, certainly lives up to it, and features a seemingly inserted glass-encased space on the ground floor with various settings that each contribute to an otherworldly shopping experience. Upon entering the store, shoppers find that the basement has been laid bare. By way of a staircase, they encounter a setting iwhich s anchored by a setting with statues of an elderly couple caught in an endearing act of applying lip balm – obviously, using Tamburin‘s beautifully packaged Egg lip balm – surrounded by soil littered with dead leaves, an undulating abstract sculpture, and last but not least, two semi-figurative paintings by artist Jae-heon Lee. The setting is encircled by staggered white panels, which both incorporate displays, on the outside that is, and shield it from design-led showcases which present Tamburins‘ newly launched Egg perfume collection and perfume candles. © superfuture.com
Tamburins
8 Yeonmujang 5-gil (Seongsu)
04782 Seoul
Telephone +82 70 42666142
Daily 11am-9pm
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