Case Study

Forging a Luxury Retail Identity for the Modern Gentleman

Top Brass

Services

Industries

Apparel & Lifestyle

Overview

Striking Visual Identity

The colonial style front with its elegant use of the blue, white and brass colour palette helped instantly communicated a sense of premiumness, building instant brand awareness and presence among passer-by's on the high street.

Human-Centered Narrative

Engaging customers in 'finding' the products and 'learning' about them by bringing The Thinker, The Craftsman and The Storyteller to life with a mascot.

Craftsmanship in Action

Through the experiential craftsmanship zone featuring shoe craft, the brand's legacy in craft was effectively conveyed to the consumer.

A Seamless Retail Experience

The experience delivered with scaled fixtures and a product flow offered easy to use and pleasant browsing that could scale easily across numerous retail formats.

“Top Brass needed a store identity that could express their heritage, know how, quality and modern luxury in a delightful shopping experience.”

Top brass is a luxury menswear and accessory brand; they seek to develop an entire living experience around tradition, elegance, and contemporized desire. They target on the Tier-2 urban professional- respected due to his unpretentious style and respect for craft

The Initial Challenge

Despite knowing how to craft exceptional products the brand lacked a coherent and physical in-store identity that reflected their values and addressed the new age luxury consumers interest in personalization, craft, and luxury by creating an experience-oriented space through narrative driven visuals. The main problem for Top Brass was, to devise a novel retail store which could strike the perfect balance between,

Describing the legacy of craft in modern times in a contemporary manner.
Resonating with the new age luxury seeker who loves minimum, meaningful, experience and personalization.
Providing an aura of luxury, while being approachable and not intimidating.
Delivering a strong visual signifier on the high street.

The Mission

Challenge

Top Brass' lack of a unified brand presence at store level failed to effectively articulate its craftsmanship, heritage and urbane, hip persona as an affordably luxury option for aspirational Tier 2 professionals living in urban areas.

Solution

In an effort to fuse minimalism with heritage, and bring craftsmanship to the fore, Solution D'Art created a narrative rich, branded in-store experience incorporating a colonial exterior facade; color pallet of navy blue, white and gold; mascots; active storytelling; experiential craft hub; and a sequence store rollout.

Outcome

Top Brass now has an authentic, recognizable and affluent in-store presence, both warm and at once, contemporary and classic, a narrative enabled customer engagement and a scalable retail format which elevated brand equity.

Luxury With A Focus On Legacy

To define a warm, approachable luxury – with all the trimmings of the more opulent lifestyle – a new shop format, a blend of modern minimalist and classic colonial vernacular forms, establishes an immediate high-street presence and brand memorability thanks to its bold signature expression and distinct color pallet.

Craftsmanship is the Highlight

Shoemaking narrative through the form of mascot and dedicated interaction space, brings craft to life with added emotional response and product respect. Transforming craftsmanship into a memorable journey that deepens connection and appreciation.

Scalable Retail Design Experience

Focus and an adaptable narrative across store types with its ability to be replicated across different store sizes with modular fixture, adaptable mascots and facade treatment are enabled with the design language now providing logical progression, intuitive pathways and accessible journeys for contemporary Tier 2 professionals.

"Having done a extensive exploratory study we realized that the Top Brass required a warm, lived in feel with supported craft experience delivered in a classic colonial architectural form."

Designing The Luxury Story

We, as the design partner were given an imperative start with a deep ‘THINK’ discovery, researching the buying behavior of its customer base, their journey towards experiencing luxury, how the brand stood up against its peers and, crucially, the underlying truth of Top Brass i.e., values like ‘craftsmanship’, ‘heritage’, ‘confidence’, ‘simplicity’.

Based on our findings, we distilled the below 3 strategic insights,

Luxury Must Feel Lived-In, Not Intimidating: The luxe experience for this section of buyers needed to be warm and authentic and not the chill theatre of luxury retail.
Craftsmanship Is the Brand's True Hero: We needed a narrative focusing on the artisanal craft – visualizing the heritage and the ways in which our products are born, and specifically, that of the shoemaker, through a modern visual story.
Colonial Architectural Language Is the Brand's Soul: The classical patterns like repeated arches, luxurious brass features, and balanced symmetry evoked for them a global language that symbolised heritage as premium, timeless and thoroughly modern and contemporary.

The philosophy of “minimalism meets tradition, premium meets personality and luxury meets storytelling” emerged.

“The unique colonial styled front, a palette of blue, white, and brass and the mascot driven narrative make for a comfortable and distinctive store brand.”

Crafting an Iconic Retail Identity

On top of the design concept, a clear and strong store identity came to fruition. One aspect of the store’s design was the colonial-inspired arch on the storefront, signifying the strength of the brand. The interior was made to express warmth, a luxurious feel, and value. With engaging product storytelling, attractive design elements and brand communication that was sure to leave a lasting impression on its customers.

A tri, tonal color palette and accents of brass or gold were the perfect elements to breathe life into the brand signature – one that would underline the attributes of heritage, craftsmanship and luxury, simple pure white the clarity and modernity, and a darker navy blue that conveyed trust and luxury. Mascot, storytelling that brought the retail space alive to life and evoked the three persona – The Thinker, The Craftsman, The Storyteller – giving a sense of warmth, individuality, and human connect to the upmarket.

Within the store, a ‘Craftsman Zone’ was made to capture the very core emotion and handcrafted heritage behind every item created. Sequential planogramming assured that there was a natural flow of products from footwear to clothing, and accessories allowing customers a smooth experience. Customers were captivated, intrigued, and connected with an emotional resonance thanks to the store’s design, story, and layout.

“The result was a distinctive visual identity, a cozy modern classic look and a powerful story of craftsmanship.”

Final Impact & Scalability

Top Brass put together a high end, retail setup that could be replicated from very small stores to the largest of its kind. Designed with flexible frontages, robust brass fixtures and modular fitments; it was easily adaptable for store layouts across the different tiers, with mascot panels installed on stores of all formats. This led to a strong visual identity with a timeless look, as well as the creation of an emotionally engaging store and narrative around it. It was one hell of a journey showing what went into bringing these pieces to life and drew in many professional Tier 2 customers to their locations. This indeed enhanced brand equity as luxury.

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