As the boundaries between fashion segments are increasingly blurred by today’s savvy consumers’ eclectic shopping behaviour and the fashion industry itself, mainstream brands have started to feel the need to step up their ballgame to keep just about everyone on their toes. Part of the vast Inditex empire, Zara has a presence in almost every market on the planet, offering on-trend designs to a young and in-the-know demographic. One of the brand’s latest store openings, in Madrid‘s upscale downtown neighbourhood.of Salamanca, is a first for the city as it’s exclusively dedicated to the men’s collections. The novelty of this Zara Man store, which occupies approx. 700 sqm. (7,535 sq.ft.) set across two floors of a late 1960s residential building, is the fact that it combines a retail space with a cozy café.
The interior design, created by the brand’s in-house design team, sees a series of understated, clean spaces with a welcoming feel, captured by a carefully curated selection of materials, including reclaimed wood, leather and chrome metals. Adding a subtle lifestyle layering to the men’s boutique is a collection of photographs by Spanish photographer Juan Baraja which adorns the stairwell. Needless to say, the store integrates the latest technology, offering shoppers a seamless shopping experience that’s almost similar to making a purchase online. Additionally, it features fully automated self-service check-out counters, while highly efficient energy and cooling systems have been implemented to reduce the store’s carbon footprint as much as possible.Featured in different settings, the new Zara Man store carries the entire main men’s collection, in addition to the Zara Origins and Zara Athleticz, fragrances and lifestyle products.
The huge bonus for shoppers is a café on the premises, and it’s called Zacaffè. Following similar watering holes in Dubai, Lisbon and Paris, this is the first of its kind on home turf. Although connected indoors, the café boasts its very own street side entrance. Featuring a contrasting interior by Art Recherche Industrie, a Paris-based design practice led by Ramdane Touhami, who also happens to be the co-founder of revived cult French beauty brand Officine Universelle de Buly. Interestingly, the chosen aesthetic aims to connect with the establishments in the aforementioned cities, and for this branch, cues were taken from the historic Mudéjar architecture in general, and the Casa Árabe institute in the Spanish capital in particular. The inspiration most evident in the abundant use of tiles and references to traditional mashrabiya elements. Mind you, even the tableware shows Arabic elements. © superfuture
Zara Man + Zacaffè
Calle de Hermosilla 14 (Salamanca)
28001 Madrid
Mon-Sat 10am-10pm
Sun 12am-9pm
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.
