forte_forte has opened its new store in Italy, featuring golden and powder-colored details and elements with minimal touches. 

Called forte_forte Store Forte dei Marmi, the 70-square-metre store is located in Forte dei Marmi and the store is described as "a nautical shell" that brings light and matter together. 

The new Forte Forte store's language is expanded with a richness of materials while maintaining softness inside. The idea stems from the brand's co-founder, Giada Forte, and her partner, creative director Robert Vattilana.

Offering a special grammar of materials inside, the forms are further enriched and modulated with each new chapter, defining a system that is both recognizable and constantly evolving. 

The store's style and composition derive from the observation of the place, meant as a spatial, urban, and geographical entity. The architectural language of the store takes on local inflections, specific accents, without ever becoming a dialect.

Golden leafs that wrap the interior, golden cabinets, powder–colored stucco, gray concrete and white stone are the key materials that dominate the space in an harmonious way.

"The opening in Forte dei Marmi, a holiday resort glistening with golden beaches against the backdrop of the Apuan Alps, is an opportunity to work on unprecedented balances and harmonious contrasts, combining for the first time wood, organic and redolent with nautical memories, with the metals and the minerals that are the defining elements of the forte_forte materiality," said forte_forte.

The store is located at number 13 of Piazzetta Tonini, in the city center, and is open to the outside with a full–width glass door that lets in the light in, space develops, high and deep. 

The store is following a square section, rhythmically marked by an intertwining of light, angular and softly–veined wooden poles creating a succession of five portals. 

"These simple structures articulate the space, visually, combining the solemnity of a basilica and the functionality of a hull. The rhythm of the weaves is punctuated by notes of gold leaf, accents of an essential and vibrant melody, metallic rises that interact once again with the light," the firm added.

The creative due wanted to create a journey inside. Walking through the space, one is enveloped and caressed by the soft light that expands on the wooden structures and creates a movement of discovery of the garments and the environment, modulated in an upward flow of shades. 

While the floors are made of an invented mineral, the interiors are an agglomeration of gray concrete and white stone with the appearance of salt crystals and deep jade green crystals. 

The materials dialogue with the warmth of wood, and contrast with the hand–treated walls in a powder–colored stucco. Calligraphic hangers in-ground brass, anchored to the ground as well as to the ceiling, run along the walls to display the products.

The furniture consists of a triptych mirror of modernist design; like a fresh and welcoming courtyard. A solid round bench and a cloud vase, containing a plant with giant leaves, occupy the center of the room.

A cantilevered display in brass marks the entrance. "As intimate as a boudoir, the dressing rooms at the back of the shop, positioned under the mezzanine and divisible thanks to a movable curtain, insert the silky note of velvet into the story: gold on the outside, teal on the inside, seats, and carpets," added the firm. 

A rotating mirror accentuates the intimacy of the area. The brass cash desk, also placed under the mezzanine, is a shiny block covered with gold leaf.

The mezzanine itself is set high in the space, a volume of pure sheen. Behind the full–height door, bright with gold, is the private stairwell, in a delicate shade of sage green. "Space tells a story that is both rational and emotional, marine in its echoes, refracted in the eclectic interweaving of colors and elements."

Floor plan

Longitudinal Section

Transversal section

Project facts

Project name: forte_forte Store Forte dei Marmi

Architects: forte_forte

Location: Forte dei Marmi, Italy 

Size: 70m2 

Date: 2021 

All images © Danilo Scarpati

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