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Following a collaboration that began in 2018 between DCA Milan and the Kriemler brothers for the development of a new Store Concept, the first AKRIS prototype store has opened in Washington. AKRIS is an international fashion house founded in Saint Gallen, Switzerland in 1922, and its name is an acronym of Alice Kriemler–Schoch, the company’s founder. Ownership has subsequently passed down the family and the company is now run by the founder’s grandchildren, Albert and Peter Kriemler.

The store concept takes inspiration from the scrupulous attention to detail and the use of materials that has always been a defining characteristic of the fashion house. All the display elements are reduced to the minimum and are formed from a series of taut cables that support shelves and hangers with the intention of displaying the products as if they were magically suspended within an architectural box of limestone and wood. The design references Bruno Munari’s tensile spatial structures, whose fundamental nature lies in the contrast between two opposing forces: tension and compression.

The second Prototype Store will open shortly in Tokyo, Japan.

Image © Alberto Parise