Shine by LEAD and Nelson Chow

This Hong Kong boutique has an undulating ceiling of woven cables and a checkout inside the changing rooms.

Architects LEAD and Nelson Chow designed the store for retailer Shine, who stock clothing collections from various fashion brands.

Over 900 overlapping white cables create the suspended ceiling, which contrasts with the black structure behind.

A mirror across the back wall creates the illusion that the ceiling is twice as long.

Garments hang from leather-covered rails, where mounted plaques state the designer of each collection.

Other projects on Dezeen with undulating ceilings include a cave-like cafe and a timber-lined hotel room.

Photography is by Dennis Lo.

Here's some more information from the architects:

Shine is one of Hong Kong’s most renowned high-end multi-brand fashion stores, known for bringing pioneering foreign brands to Hong Kong clientele. The Shine Flagship Fashion Store in Causeway Bay, designed by NC Design & Architecture Ltd. (NCDA) and the Laboratory for Explorative Architecture & Design Ltd. (LEAD), showcases how an architectural reinterpretation of contemporary textile patterns & accessories can be seamlessly integrated into fashion retail, creating a fascinating yet highly functional contemporary store.

Located in the Fashion Walk, the Shine Corner Store optimises its relation to the street through an open façade, visually doubling the space through a fully mirrored back wall. In the main room, pieces from various designers are presented against a monochromatic background into a flexible open shelving system. The shelves’ design is based on a folding luggage rack and its leather surface with integrated lighting has leather belts strapped around it to reveal the names of the designer brands below. The cashier area in the back of the store conceals the fitting rooms and storage entrance behind a continuously folded black steel wall that resembles long folded dressing partitions and forms the most intimate and private area within the overall shop.

The most distinct feature of the store is its ceiling. Over 900 shimmering white cords are woven into undulating overlapping planes that create Moiré patterns against the dark ceiling backdrop. The design questions and explores the dematerialisation of surfaces through the weaving of thread – an element commonly found in contemporary textile patterns and fabrics – and alludes to principles of Op Art by directly referring to graphical experimentation in the grisaille paintings of artists like Victor Vasarely and others. The ceiling plays on the shopper’s perception as walking underneath it suggest the illusion of movement as hidden images appear to be flashing and vibrating in the ceiling and swelling, warping patterns emerge.

The Shine Fashion Store shows how unique large-scale effects that emerge from the creative use of material and detailing can effectively be combined with programmatic functionality and spatial efficiency.