MILAN DESIGN WEEK | LEE BROOM | SAN GREGORIO DOCET
British product and interior designer Lee Broom transformed a street of disused shops on Via Alfredo Cappellini to create ‘The Department Store’, his largest exhibition to date with the launch of over twenty new products. Lee created a dramatic series of interconnected department store-inspired vignettes within the space the perfect articulation of his skills in cinema, set and product design. Each year he creates his trademark theatrical stylized presentations within Milan with his presentation this year displaying his defined vision of balance between formality and fun with modernism and nostalgia.
The Department Store creates an immersive journey through a cinematic pastiche of a store across two floors. Upon arrival, you encounter windows dressed with new products in a scenographic style. As you enter you move from tableau to tableau through the exhibition, with each environment representing a surreal take on a different department – including The Perfumery, Ladies Accessories, Gents Fitting Room, Book Store and Haberdashery. Each department will act as a backdrop, finished in Lee Broom signature grey to accentuate the colours and materials of the new pieces. The final area, ‘The Stock Room’ displays Lee Broom’s most popular and iconic pieces from past collections.
Lee Broom says: “This is my largest collection to date and I wanted to explore all the things that inspire me right now, from new materials, vivid colours, pop culture, craft culture, techniques from the past and shapes from the future. All of which to be housed in my very own “Department Store.”
With over twenty new products throughout the store. Broom explores the balance of abstract shapes and silhouettes and incorporates a primary colour palette of vivid red, petrol blue and neon yellow together with more neutral tones from natural materials such as wood and marble. He has made such a conscious effort to support his local suppliers in London with one new lighting piece featuring a stain glassed window effect created by local artisans in Shoreditch where is London studio resides. Take a bow Lee Broom as your presentation is of theater quality and we all need to clap and through roses at you.
Images by Emma Elizabeth
© LOCAL DESIGN
