Fashion brand Topshop presented its Spring Summer 2014 collection on an indoor catwalk covered in real grass (+ slideshow).
The temporary Topshop Showspace, designed by London architects Pernilla Ohrstedt Studio, was built in Regent's Park in London last month as part of London Fashion Week.
Models paraded along a 40-metre-long catwalk surfaced with a product originally designed for erosion control and featuring a lawn growing on a bed of recycled felt.
"Walking on a lawn could be problematic because models are tall and tend to wear heels," said Pernilla Ohrstedt, who presented the project at the Inside Festival in Singapore yesterday. "The felt makes the surface firm enough that heels don't sink in."
A white stripe of chalk painted along the centre of the lawn marked the edges of the runway, which ran along the centre of a tent.
The felt bed of the lawn, made of recycled fibres from the fashion industry, was part of a strategy to choose materials that could be reused.
Ohrstedt also designed a bar made of sawn trunks of douglas fir stacked to resemble the way timber is dried in lumber yards. "None of the planks have been drilled, so they can be reused," said Ohrstedt.
The various pavilions at the showspace, set on lawns in the central London park, were linked by raised boardwalks made of scaffolding planks. "Nearly all the planks will be sold back to the construction industry," Ohrstedt told Dezeen.
The branching paths were based on walkways in Ohrstedt's native Sweden, where raised walkways are used to cross boggy areas. Customised white umbrellas like those used in the construction industry were dotted across the lawn.
We've also featured Studio Job's catwalk design for the Viktor & Rolf Autumn Winter 2013 show, with a backdrop of wilting flowers. See more set design »
Yesterday we published the first group of category winners from the Inside Festival, which included an office space modelled on a workshop and a renovated house with a transparent staircase. See all our coverage of Inside Festival 2013 »
Photographs are by Tom James unless otherwise specified.
Here's some text from Pernilla Ohrstedt Studio:
Topshop Showspace Spring Summer 2014
Pernilla Ohrstedt Studio was commissioned to design Topshop's Showspace in Regents Park for London Fashion Week S/S 14.
Situated in the lush grounds of Regents University College the Showspace included a large Catwalk tent, a Café and a presentations space connected by a series of walkways across the lawns as well as the stage set for Topshop Unique's catwalk attended by more than 800 people.
The Showspace is part of the Topshop's on-going dedication to supporting emerging talent in London. It was launched with Topshop's own Unique show Sunday Sept 15 and subsequently hosted catwalks and presentation for seven other designers Meadham Kirchhoff, Fashion East, Marios Schwab, Marques'Almeida, Lucas Nascimento, Sophia Webster and Nasir Mazhar.
Inspired by minimal ways of creating paths through nature, the Showspace brought the outside in. The entire catwalk space was covered in real grass with the catwalk itself simply painted like a wide chalk line. The special grass, originally developed for erosion control, is grown through a felt made from recycled materials from the textile industry allowing models and guest to walk across it without sinking in or getting heels stuck in the ground.
The Café space featured an entire Douglas Fir tree trunk freshly swan and simply stacked to create an eight meter long bar, a backdrop made from a giant backlit non-woven geotextile, and a leaning mirrored screen reflecting the greenery of the park and the attending fashion crowd.
The spaces were connected by 200 meters of timber walkways designed alike the simple constructions that take you across boggy marshes in northern Sweden.
Topshop Showspace was produced by Family Ltd.