Texas A&M University. Second Year Studio. Spring 2009.
Instructor: Gabriel Esquivel
PRADA BOUTIQUE
Prada is an Italian fashion label specializing in luxury goods for men and women (ready-to-wear, leather accessories, shoes, and luggage). Prada is considered one of the most influential clothing designers in the fashion industry. The label is synonymous with opulence and quality, and is widely regarded as a status symbol like numerous other luxury brands, Prada battles against counterfeiting and ensures authenticity only from its official boutiques (found globally) and online store.
First opened as a leather goods shop in Milan in 1992, the Prada label was taken in by designer Miuccia Prada in 1999 and transformed into the luxury goods, fashion house recognized today.
In 2005, near the West Texas towns of Valentine and Marfa, a pair of Scandinavian artists, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, unveiled Prada Marfa, a sculpture masquerading as a Prada mini-boutique. Located along an isolated stretch of U.S. Highway 90, the 15 by 25-foot adobe and stucco building was partially funded by the Prada Foundation and realized with the assistance of American architects Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello. To the dismay of potential shoppers the doors are sealed shut. A duplex megastore will be opened in Kuala Lumpur this year.
Houston is the fourth largest American city and is well known for its cosmopolitan life and its fabulous shopping. For this reason we thought it was inportant to propose the idea of openning a store in Houston. The store will be a free standing structure located on Westheimer Ave. around the Galleria area.
We selected three different sites for the students to chose along the Galleria area.
Techique
The idea was to apply fashion techniques like pleating, sawing, draping, fitting, gathering, etc. to explore the possibilities of creating an aeffective skin for a proposed building. We decided to use digital exploration to the minimum and try to explore the project using analog models applying a specific technique. Through photography the students were able to create day and night effects that were pertinent fro their project.
