INTERIOR DESIGNS

The Design Team at Louis Vuitton created an underground store in the basement of Tokyo's Seibu Ikebukuro department store, which kind of looks like a construction site.

Stepping into the Louis Vuitton shop in the basement of Tokyo’s Seibu Ikebukuro department store, shoppers cannot be blamed for thinking they’ve stumbled onto a construction site. Created by the Paris-based Louis Vuitton Design Team, Louis Vuitton Underground is intended as a temporary retail space. The permanent store is not due to open until the autumn. Scattered throughout the 383-m2 interior is a clutter of scaffolding, wooden crates, safety barriers, electricity-supply codes and helmets. A custom-made forklift truck serves as a display for Louis Vuitton bags, and blueprints for the as-yet-unrealized store cover one wall of a space orchestrated to convey an atmosphere of heightened anticipation. Even the hand-painted linoleum floor looks convincingly like construction-site concrete. Customers do not require ear protection, however, as the decibel level here is no higher than that of an ordinary shop-in-shop.