Supreme Opens Brinkworth-Designed Paris Flagship

Confident and unorthodox is how design firm Brinkworth describes the latest outpost of cult streetwear label Supreme. Recently opened in Paris’ Le Marais district, the shop pushes the merchandise to the back and greets customers with a gallery-like front space, which is absent of product and adorned with a 7-foot priest sculpture by renowned skater and artist Mark Gonzales and a wall installation by collage artist Weirdo Dave.

“The store is unorthodox in that it plays with conventional retail wisdom,” says Sam Derrick, a director and project lead at Brinkworth. “All the product is displayed around the perimeter with no mid-floor display and is pushed to the rear of the store beyond a space at the front solely for artwork, skate videos, and decks.”

Marking Supreme’s second outpost in Europe, the new shop reunited Brinkworth and the Wilson Brothers who were behind the design of the New York institution’s 2011 London store. Working closely with Supreme owner James Jebbia, the team used the constraints of the 1,100-square-foot space to inform their design decisions.
 

From the small front entry, a corridor is adorned with skateboard decks–a timeline of Supreme’s commissioned decks from the likes of Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst and Richard Prince and a bridge to the backroom.

There, the designers restored the space’s original glass roof, which, rising 5 meters high and featuring curved ironwork and Georgian wire mottled glass construction, floods the room with light. As in all of Supreme’s shops, merchandize is only displayed on the perimeter. One wall is adorned with a mural by Gonzales.
 

“The simple, paired back interior conveys confidence in the architectural space, the product and the brand,” says Derrick. “The considered integration of artwork throughout the space complements [that] interior and the experience of the store as a whole.”