This compact eyewear store in New York’s West Village has been divided into “on stage” and “backstage” areas, as part of a design studio Tutto Bene’s “love letter to theatrical glamour”.
The second New York City store for UK-based brand Cubitts is situated on Bleecker Street, a thoroughfare known for its architectural charm and variety of boutiques.
Design studio Tutto Bene, which is behind several Cubitts interiors, looked to the history of the neighbourhood and the building – once home to playwright Lorraine Hansberry — to inform this location.
“It’s a love letter to theatrical glamour, holding a mirror to the dualities of ‘on stage’ and ‘backstage’, public and private lives,” said the design team. “The front of the store is designed as a stage for spectacles. A theatre of the every day, for the theatrical masks we all wear.”
The eyewear is displayed on wooden shelving recessed into beige felt-lined walls and illuminated by cove lights hidden behind.
Wooden floorboards are stained black to emulate a stage, while movable display plinths made from brushed aluminium have a prop-like quality.
Overhead, a 1980s geometric pendant lamp by Swiss architect Mario Botta joins a 1960s Kaiser Leuchten table lamp by German designer Klaus Hempel – both chosen for their resemblance to theatre flashlights.
A velvet-upholstered sofa is placed in the window for shoppers to rest, relax, and observe the performance of trying on eyewear, providing “a front-row seat for the weary spectacle browser” according to Tutto Bene.
The curved wall behind a partition leads to the “backstage” area, which is decorated in contrasting dark brown.
This space is used for bespoke consultations and includes a vanity mirror with lightbulbs like in a theatre dressing room.
To celebrate the West Village store opening, Cubitts has launched three new frames modelled on local landmarks including former speakeasy Chumley’s and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
The brand was founded in King’s Cross, London, in 2013, and now has 19 stores spread across both sides of the Atlantic.
Tutto Bene is led by Felizia Berchtold and Oskar Kohnen, and has studios in London and Milan.
The firm’s previous interiors for Cubitts include a store in Islington, north London, modelled on an artist’s loft and a boutique in New York’s Soho influenced by early 20th-century American industrial design.
The photography is by Alice Gao.
