Our collaboration draws on a deep mutual understanding of the Fred Perry brand, which goes beyond architectural matters to take in wider ideas about culture, style, identity – and, crucially, the growth of the business.
In 2016 the organisation wanted to consolidate their offices and showrooms into one building, we were commissioned to fit out three nineteenth-century warehouses as a new headquarters. As design consultant to the brand, we had already developed an architectural language that was a refinement of urban British street style. The core elements are a stripped-back approach, with robust materials proudly exposed and treated with high-quality details and clever graphic techniques.
The Victorian warehouses of Mount Pleasant, in the Clerkenwell neighbourhood, provided a fitting canvas with their brickwork, timber joists and steel reinforcements. As well as the day-to-day business of the brand, they needed to accommodate spaces to welcome buyers, display the collections and hold events.
Prior to Mount Pleasant, the first office project we delivered for Fred Perry was a headquarters on James Street in Covent Garden. Commissioned in 2009 at the height of the global recession, we worked to an extremely tight budget to achieve the high quality of design associated with the brand.
