Four IV fashions look for Madeleine Press

Four IV has created the interiors for womenswear designer Madeleine Press’s first London store, opening this week, and is in line to win further commissions as the brand expands.

Press was formerly one half of the Press & Bastyan label acquired by Karen Millen in 1997.

According to Madeleine Press managing director Stuart Newman, the company hopes to have ‘ten shops and concessions within the next three years’. The brand sees its marketing position and target customer as analogous to that of fashion brand Joseph.

The first store’s 139m2 space was conceived with the needs of a growing business in mind. Around 74-84m2 at the front is given over to retailing – with wide, cross-hatched oak flooring providing a ‘modern take on parquet’.

A flexible section at the back, accessible via metal and frosted Perspex sliding doors, serves as a showroom, studio and additional selling area.

Four IV director Chris Dewar Dixon says that the interiors ‘reflect the basic qualities of [Press’s] garments – simply done [but often with] elaborate detail that’s quite hidden.’

Original brick walls and poured concrete floors have been exposed and ‘revisited’, adds Dewar Dixon, to create an overall ‘untreated’ look.

The merchandising system features ‘rods hanging straight out of the ceiling’, with customers encouraged to touch and feel the garments.

Press’s attention to detail, usually seen in the ‘construction and cutting’ of the clothes, is echoed in the ‘textures’ used in the interior, adds Newman.