Din Associates gets into Fenwick

Din Associates has agreed the overall design direction of its interiors work for a £20m new-build Fenwick store in Canterbury, following its appointment last month.

It is the first time Fenwick has used a single consultancy for an entire store, and the project is the largest undertaken by Din in its ten-year relationship with the department store group.

The consultancy is designing interiors for the store, which is scheduled to open in spring 2003. Its work will include men’s and women’s fashion departments among several others.

Fenwick selected a single consultancy to provide a ‘complete, coherent look’ for the store, says Fenwick Canterbury managing director Hugo Fenwick. The overall design fee has yet to be finalised, Fenwick adds.

Din Associates won this latest work following a credentials presentation. Six consultanices were shortlisted and ‘two or three’ presented credentials, says Fenwick.

‘It is the first opportunity we have had to design interiors for a Fenwick store completely from scratch,’ says Din Associates creative director John Harvey.

The store will be sufficiently aspirational that it ‘retains existing clientele without frightening them off’ but incorporates a more updated look, according to Fenwick. It aims to attract customers who might otherwise shop in the West End of London’ or the Kent shopping centre Bluewater, he adds.

The previous Fenwick outlet in Canterbury, which was branded Ricemans, is to be demolished and a shopping centre built in its place.

Last year, Din Associates completed a cosmetics hall for Fenwick’s central London Bond Street store and is designing a cosmetics hall for Fenwicks in Newcastle and fashion departments for the Tunbridge Wells outlet.