A well-known shoe brand Camper opens a new shop in London. But not the shoes are the ones that catch your eye at first. The unusual interior makes this place special.

This shop is one of the Camper together” series – a collaborative project in which some of the best international architects and designers create Camper stores that reflect their own vision of the brand. In this case, Tomás Alonso is responsible for the design of this store in London. It‘s  Camper‘s fifth shop in this city and the second collaboration with Tomás Alonso, a young Spanish designer of Galician origin, who practices “slow design” and has a knack for working with simple gestures.

One of the most exceptional elements in this shoe shop is the wall finish. The interior is lined with a grid of white 10 by 10cm tiles, but this pattern is broken in places by colored geometric tiles to create the illusion of recesses or volumes looming out from the walls.

”The wall cladding is a simple twist on the standard square tile. If it is combined with three additional shapes, you can create all kinds of geometric patterns and designs in isometric perspective. ” says Tomás Alonso.

The space is furnished with benches and counters made of oak and bent steel tubes in Alonso’s studio, plus ceramic lamps he designed especially for the project. Perhaps the most striking element is the large table with its accompanying chairs and benches, which take up most of the space. The ceramic lamps are also original designs.

Since the great masters of the Modernist movement, no designer has been noted for his ability to bend a steel tube. This apparently simple feat is actually quite difficult to perform with a natural flair, as Tomás Alonso does. “All of the furniture was designed and built specifically for the shop as part of a personal project I’ve been working on for some time now, which is based on the formal and structural language that two materials as dissimilar as lacquer tubing and natural wood – in this case, white oak – can create together.”

What strikes me the most in this project is that Camper didn’t use their brand style to create a shop interior, this place is a reflection of an artist and shows the designer’s point of view.