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Taking Sunglass Hut stores as high-end as their products have gone, this new prototype design reinforces the company’s new brand principles—sleek, sexy, and cool.

“The brand has shifted over the past few years from a male-dominated, sports-inspired market to sunglasses becoming high-end accessories sought by female consumers as well,” says Christian Davies, vice president and managing creative director of design firm FRCH.

Supporting luxury brands including Gucci, Chanel, Versace, and Tiffany, the store’s mirrored and contrasting black and white surfaces set the stage. Modular fixtures, some incorporating colorful graphic panels, stand out against a backlit black wall and a front-lit white wall.

Easy access
Rather than in locked showcases, sunglasses are accessible on simple glass shelves and on modular fixtures. A mirrored band wrapping the store walls makes a style statement while letting customers see how they look in different frames from anywhere in the store. Head-to-toe mirrors allow customers to see how the sunglasses coordinate with their outfits.

Large-scale graphics are changeable through tray inserts; the store's entire graphics program can be changed in little more than an hour to reinforce the latest fashion or vendor campaign, FRCH says. Since the system is based on simple materials—vinyl, gatorboard, vinyl, and paper—new graphics can be developed at the retailer's headquarters and provided electronically to regional divisions for production. Then graphics can be rolled up, placed in tubes, and sent to the individual stores.

Storage space is minimal (and in some locations non-existent), so a mirrored focal wall behind the cashwrap serves as a “brand billboard,” while concealing sunglass cases and bags in a location convenient for employees.

Prototyping an entire store
Many of the fixtures and visual presentations were prototyped and built by A.R.E. member companies Bruewer Woodwork Manufacturing Co., based in Cleves, Ohio, and JP Metal America Inc., based in Montreal. Says Davies, “Both companies were wonderful at working through the prototyping process for this project—they did a whole series of full-blown mockups.” In fact, a full-scale and fully functioning prototype store was built within Luxottica’s U.S. headquarters in Mason, Ohio, just weeks before the 800-square-foot unit opened in Reading, UK.

Davies says that this full-scale prototyping was an important aspect of refining both the design and the tactical elements of the store, allowing Sunglass Hut’s instore merchandising team to “kick the tires” and make sure that everything in the store functioned the way it needed to, was easily installed, and was flexible enough to meet the retailer’s need for varying store sizes and layouts. Equally important, the prototype allowed the retailer to test which elements were most effective at driving sales.

The store fixtures were designed to present the company’s products as high-end luxuries, but at the same time make them easily accessible to customers to try on. Bruewer, the lead fixture supplier for the project, provided the wall shelving systems and a cantilevered wall presentation 42 inches wide and nine feet long. JP Metal America Inc. prototyped and developed the small, mobile “Go-Go” pedestal fixtures and visual platforms.

Bobby Ciricillo, senior vice president of sales for JP Metal, says that although the project was fast-paced, the “Go-Go” fixtures went through several prototypes as the design and finishes were refined and lighting was added. “It was a fun project, with very high-end specifications and finishes, including a plated titanium nickel with a rubberized finish to keep the sunglasses from slipping,” he says.

To maintain the necessary rigidity, the wood-and-metal pedestals evolved into a one-piece design that incorporated changeable frosted acrylic panels and graphics. A hollow body reduces weight of the mobile fixtures. Says Davies, “The freestanding go-go’s can be combined and recombined in many different ways, so it’s easy for them to adapt to the needs of the wide ranges of store applications and sizes.”

JP Metal produced the fixtures for the first two stores. FRCH says that after the redesign, the Reading Sunglass Hut location is outperforming its sales goals by 250 percent. Sunglass Hut is currently in the process of a two-year roll-out of the new concept.