Brave Seoul Retail
Photography: Sonia Brown
Sonia Brown, executive Creative Director at Quadrant Design and photographer, travels to Seoul to experience its vibrant retail scene.
“There is a real kind of bravery around Seoul, and I absolutely fell in love with it,” says Sonia Brown, Executive Director and Head of Design at Quadrant Design in London. For 17 years, she has been a retail designer, working with high-street and luxury brands across retail and restaurants.
Sonia was always a big fan of New York. Apart from scouring the internet, magazines, and blogs for new inspiration, she kept going back to New York every single year. But then, about 8 years ago, Seoul started showing up on blogs and in magazines. The new ways of doing things piqued Sonia's curiosity.
“Whenever we can feel a moment of awe as a human being, it captivates us, doesn’t it?”
Last year in October, Sonia visited Seoul for the first time.
“All those images that I’ve seen and collected over the years, I can now understand them so much more,” she says.
Over a few days, she visited retail stores in Seongsu, Sinsa, Gangnam, Hannam, and Bukchon to experience Seoul's retail scene. With her, she had her Sony A9. Alongside her career in retail design, she has been running a photography business with her husband, specialising in wedding photography.
“I love capturing those real moments between people and places,”she says. Sonia always uses a 35mm lens for that exact reason — it is the closest to what we see through our own eyes.
“For me, photography is the same as what I’m creating for a brand,” she explains. “My love is to understand what kind of stories are told, what authentic touches there are that create a brand’s vision. It’s the same with photography. My style is very much finding the honesty in photos.”
The first retail space Sonia visited was Tambourins in Seongsu. The flagship store features a concrete shell with a contemporary glass structure in the centre.
“They’re using all this real estate as a shell essentially,” Sonia says. It is only when you enter and go down to the basement that the retail space opens up, revealing a mushroom that has sounds, steam, smoke and scent.
"It's unseen to the public until you go down there. There is a huge bravery in that." Sonia says.
The experience took Sonia's breath away.
"Whenever we can feel a moment of awe as a human being, it captivates us, doesn't it?"
It was not only the local brands that fascinated Sonia during her visit. H&M, a brand with which Sonia has experience in the UK, has a space in Seongsu that really stood out to her.
"They have used their brand identity by focusing on the red - using it in a strong, powerful and colour-blocking way," she explains.
The store has also flipped the typical store design rules by placing the fitting room in the centre of the space instead of tucking it away.
“There is a kind of artistic licence
to do anything.”
"Seeing it executed in such a way just felt really brave," Sonia says.
Perfumer H, a British brand with a shop in Dosan, also fascinated Sonia.
"It felt so different from their UK shops - it was welcoming, not intimidating as many high-end shops can be," she says. She feels that in Seoul, barriers are being broken down through the staff.
"People we met in Korea were more hosts than sales assistants, and there was a sense of hospitality and welcoming," she remembers.
Next to Perfumer H's store, they have something called Bath House - a timber-constructed box, made out of cedar wood. Sonia was invited in, and the staff closed the door.
"I was engulfed in the scent of cedar. All natural, real."
Superbrands come to Seoul to test. It's completely unlike Europe and the UK, which are very restrictive. In Seoul, you can anything.
"A brand can come to Seoul and do whatever they want; there is a kind of artistic licence to do anything," Sonia says. "Something that doesn't exist elsewhere."
In Seoul, part of the store is dedicated to brand stories and experiences, making people spend more time in the store, have a better experience, and feel a connection to the brand.
"The brands are not filling this amazing vessel of space with just lines and lines of stock and making it all about selling," Sonia explains.
In ADERERROR's space in Sinsa, she discovered that lots of recycled materials were used in interesting ways. Old, carved, monolithic slabs were used to showcase products, and the fittings were often just as beautiful as the products, whereas it is usually about elevating the product and letting the fixtures blend into the background. Here, the fixture becomes an art installation.
“It’s a bit like a rite of passage. It is an aspirational city to visit.”
"The retail spaces are where people connect and fall in love with the brands. The sales happen later, maybe at another store or online,"
Sonia comments.
"It is the canvas to connect with their people and their tribes.
Sonia wants to show clients that retail spaces can hold a different value. It doesn't have to fit 200 pairs of jeans; it can be 20 pairs with more space to express the brand, in the long run creating more value.
"Seoul made me teel contident to push our clients to trust rave and to say that there is a better, more clever way of doing things.'
Since her visit to Seoul, clients and colleagues have been fascinated by the stories she has shared about Seoul and her experience there.
"It's a bit like a rite of passage," she says. "It is an aspirational city to visit."
SONIA'S SEOUL RETAIL MUST-VISITS
CHEONGDAM/APGUJEONG RODEOBirkenstock
Louis Vuitton
10 Corso Como
BOONTHESHOP
Acne Studios
SINSAHyundai Motorstudio
HANNAMComme des Garçons
Atelier Pond
Aigle Pop-up
SEONGSUPoint of View
Tamburins
H&M
Deus Ex Machina
Christian Dior
Kodak Store
Jellycat Space
Haus Nowhere
ECP
DOSAN PARK Haus Dosan
GAROSU-GILADERERROR
SONIA BROWN is Executive Creative Director at Quadrant Design, with 17 years of experience across retail, hospitality and workplace design.
Known for translating brand identity into distinctive physical environments, she has collaborated with Rolex, Watches of Switzerland, Harrods, Eton Shirts, Topshop, EL&N London, Havaianas and Beats by Dre.
Alongside her design practice, Sonia is a photographer — co-founding a wedding photography business in 2014, recognised in British Vogue, and today documenting travel and the places that shape her creative perspective.
QUADRANT DESIGN
quadrantdesign.co.ukRS BROWN PHOTOGRAPHY rsbrownphotography.com