Lecture
Valeria Maria Iannilli
This lecture aims to frame the second and third trends that are currently impacting the retail industry and represent the response of companies to the economic and social transformation processes we are experiencing. The first trend focuses on Local Service Hubs, and the second one on Emotional Connection. The changing shopping habits and the proliferation of online shopping are driving structural changes in the retail industry. […]
Third scenario
Valeria Maria Iannilli
The third scenario captures the emotional variable as a feeling capable of involving the user in a significant way. The quest for well-being evolves towards the holistic concept of “sensorial experience”, and design shows the ability to represent, narrate, and engage with the user on the cognitive and sensory levels. By emphasizing the multi-sensory variables, brands can create a new empathetic relationship with customers. The functional-body, whose goal was to find the “failure” and repair it, is now replaced by the body-emotion, which intakes information through the senses, creating awareness. For fashion business companies, creating a “memorable” purchase experience becomes the main distinguishing factor in a saturated market in a constant state of evolution. In this context, the narrative is a metaphorical way to convey not only the physical quality of the object but also its poetic values. For this trend, the key points are:
- Storytelling vs narrative
- Sensory language
- Embedded experience
To illustrate this trend, we have selected the exhibition Colour as a Narrative by the Architect Antonino Cardillo. An architectural and olfactory project which explores the relationship between scent, colour, and texture, designed for British fine fragrance brand Illuminum. The store, which occupies a 28-square-metre room inside a Georgian building on Dover Street, in London, allows consumers to experience the company’s range of scents fully. The space is mostly empty; walls and ceilings are covered with rough plaster made from the ash of Mount Vesuvius in Italy, a mineral powder widely used in ancient Rome for the construction of the largest late antiquity buildings, such as the dome of the Pantheon in Rome. By contrast, the floor is covered with plush carpet. Thirty-seven irregular hand-blown glass containers are suspended from the ceiling in a semicircle on thin black cords of different lengths. Each vessel is filled with a different Illuminum fragrance, giving users an incredible olfactory experience. The unique retail concept takes the brand experience out of the visual realm and introduces it into a sensory-driven retail experience. The design of this space is a story, a sensory story capable of translating olfactory sensation into a powerful immersive space. Through profound design culture and knowledge of the communicative power of materials, light, and colours, Antonino Cardillo builds the stage to showcase the olfactory sensory experience of a product that is not seen but smelled. It is a poem, an indelible experience that evokes powerful memories. The smell is the only sense that has a direct connection to our body’s limbic system, which is the area of the brain that processes memories and emotions. The main features of this space are:
- Theatrical qualities
- Colour as a narrative
- Invisible products
This project is a significant example of an intelligent use of multisensory media to create an integrated spatial experience where architecture, light, and smell form a virtually symbiotic unity and, at the same time, stimulate the emotional intelligence underlying the theories on experience design.
Antonino Cardillo, Colour as a Narrative, Illuminum Fragrance, London, 2015. Photography: Antonino Cardillo