WANNA creative studio immerses visitors in an emotional universe of the skin with the experiential and suggestive design defined for the flagship store of the Primor perfume chain in Barcelona (Avenida Portal de l’Àngel, 40).
In the 1,250 square meters of floor space of the premises, spread over three floors – basement, ground and first – the interior design creates a route articulated in unique micro-worlds made from decontextualized materials such as galvanized sheet metal and lava-effect laminates. This project becomes WANNA’s second work for the Primor company, representing an evolution and an adaptation of the central shop in Madrid.
WANNA has been distinguished with the award for ‘Best physical shop concept’ in the second edition of the Spanish Retail Awards 2024, promoted by the Spanish Retail Association (AER). These awards recognize commercial initiatives that have a positive impact on society, improve the skills of their teams, generate technological innovation and promote sustainability.
‘Planeta Piel plays around the skin, its textures, shapes and colors, linking it to the world of cosmetics. To continue ‘bristling the skin’ of customers in different Primor spaces is a creative and exciting challenge. We wanted to explore the concept of beauty from a playful, direct and emotionally impactful perspective, aligned with the three pillars that form the backbone of the brand: optimistic, collective and affordable beauty’, explains Esther Mengual, co-founder of WANNA and responsible for the project.
Primor Barcelona was a finalist in the 2024 Designers’ Association of the Valencian Community (ADCV) awards in the category of Best Public Space. WANNA is already working on Primor’s third flagship store, on Calle Preciados in Madrid, for which they have created a new shop narrative and a new design, in which they are committed to other types of experiences and interactions to respond to the new needs of customers.
“Our shops in Madrid and Barcelona have marked a before and after for our brand image. They are already benchmarks in the cosmetics sector and we are adapting some of their distinctive elements to other of our shops. This is the result of the great creative and technical work carried out by WANNA”, says Juan Ricardo Hidalgo, CEO of Perfumerías Primor
The work carried out by the WANNA team at Primor Barcelona has ranged from market and trend analysis to digital creative direction and the creation of the brand narrative. They have also been in charge of experiential and space design, graphics and signage, as well as furniture design and the selection of materials.
Images Courtesy of: WANNA
The integral involvement of the studio was translated, in turn, into the search, coordination and management of the suppliers in charge of faithfully materializing WANNA’s creative vision and the work teams involved.
The shop had an important particularity: a façade with a tubular entrance and limited visibility. To overcome this situation and attract the attention of passers-by from the outside to the inside, WANNA designed a spectacular staircase with a tunnel effect at the main entrance that leaves no one indifferent. “In this first area, where the luxury cosmetics are located, we generated powerful volumes in the ceiling and with large areas of color, which somehow lighten the chromatic diversity of the products of the different brands. The aim was to create volumetry and materiality to give the shop a singular and unique personality”, says Mengual.
The metal sheets are the protagonists throughout the ground floor, which includes a multifunctional space that acts as a showroom for the toy and erotic articles brand OOOH!, whose naming and branding was also developed by WANNA, or, thanks to the mechanized curtains that cover the shelves, as a room for product presentations and launches. “With the idea of giving a double life to this space, we wanted to bring added value to Primor, as well as to the companies they work with, by creating a meeting and a content creation environment for different audiences”, adds the project manager.
This floor is completed by an Open Plan area for smaller products, where WANNA has designed the central gondolas in the shape of a tree and defined a descending ceiling structure to frame the different areas for each brand.
The different micro-worlds of Primor Barcelona are connected by a monumental staircase in Formica materials, with arcades created by prisms and an infinite screen on which animations about the world of leather are projected. The motion graphics work, carried out under the digital creative direction of WANNA, reinforces the innovative concept and contributes to generating an immersive experience for the client. In the words of Esther Mengual, “the aim of our design is to turn this shop into a playful, dynamic and attractive space”.
Beautik is located on the upper floor, an area dedicated to more affordable makeup and which is one of the most unique areas in the space. Its pink-colored mass, which evokes the epidermis, seems to descend and adapt to the different dimensions of the furniture. This manual work, the result of collaboration between WANNA and the creative workshop Creadelua, generates the entire structure in a handcrafted manner, incorporating the ventilation grilles and the lighting, which is finally assembled in situ in the shop.
The different areas of this first floor combine the magenta tones of the hairdressing products and hair accessories area with the light tones of the space dedicated to pets and the naïve wooden style of the children’s toy shop.
The basement floor of the establishment has been used for parapharmacy, drugstore and organic and natural cosmetics; in addition to white, this environment incorporates green. “In this area we wanted to generate a very fluid circulation with changes of rhythm. This is achieved thanks to the furniture and lighting. To draw attention to the area furthest away from the entrance, dedicated to organic products, we created a ceiling installation that imitates dry vegetation and which is hand-painted in a gradient“, says the designer.
At its central shop in Barcelona, Primor, the largest perfumery chain in Spain and one of the most important in Europe, sells more than 90,000 product references.
More about WANNA
WANNA is a studio specialized in creating brand stories and telling them in a transversal way from branding to interior design. WANNA is a project driven by Cathy Figueiredo, Esther Mengual and María Lillo, with offices in Madrid, Valencia and Dénia (Alicante). Since its foundation in 2016, WANNA has obtained national and international recognition, such as Hospitality Design Awards, Platinum A’ Design Award, LAUS and those awarded by the Association of Designers of the Valencian Community (ADCV). The BeautyProf Award and the Hostelco Award for the Best Hotel Concept are two specialized awards that have also recognized its work and trajectory.
The WANNA team is guided by values such as conscience, coherence and freedom, always ready to break the rules. WANNA’s experience, vision and creativity in design, interior design and architecture has led them to be part of international juries in such important events for the world of design as the iF Design Awards and the Frame Awards, as well as to transfer their knowledge through courses and conferences.
Feature Image Courtesy of: WANNA
