Marella, a womenswear brand that offers glamorous, contemporary and easy-to-wear fashion, appointed DINN! to completely redesign its physical stores.
“The project with Dinn! was conceived to innovate our customer experience by integrating new digital touchpoints into the physical store, with the aim of responding to a new approach to consumer choices by contemporary women”.
Andrea Simonazzi, General Manager – Dedimax
“The primary goal of this new project is to innovate the customer experience by fully integrating physical and digital touchpoints. By rethinking the traditional shopping experience, the project aims to reinforce the Marella retail brand identity through a unique and distinctive interior design form”
Marco De Carli, CEO & Client Leader – DINN!
The new Concept Store in Bologna caters to the evolving habits and diverse needs of the Marella community by embracing a “smart experience” approach.
The key moments of the journey are enriched by a combination of exceptional sales staff approach and seamless technology integration. The technology is perfectly integrated and remains invisible, allowing customers to fully immerse themselves in the shopping experience.
“Marella’s new store engages with customers by providing diverse shopping options that cater to different purchasing needs and preferences, including varying speeds of experience and interaction. Customers can choose to explore the store independently or seek assistance for immediate service needs, while still maintaining a strong connection with the digital customer journey.”
Matteo Caraffini, Strategist
In this innovation process, people have been given a central role as the first point of contact with the service and the Marella brand. The service model has been designed to be flexible, dynamic, and customer-focused, while still maintaining the brand’s distinctive aspects of relationship, intimacy, and consultancy. By integrating a new smart experience logic, the customer experience is truly unique.
The integration of seamless mobile payments and product delivery management, which enables customers to receive their purchases wherever they choose, are just some examples of this innovation.
A NEW CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
At the heart of the new Concept Store is the Community area, where customers can enjoy expert advice and services from the staff. This welcoming space is designed with a strong service focus, allowing customers to relax while their products are being packaged, or even attend special events and collaborations. In addition, Marella hosts visual displays created by local artists in the Community area, while offering customers simple refreshments and a carefully curated serving set, creating a truly delightful experience.
Customers immerse themselves in the new Marella Manifesto and Lifestyle, surrounded by design objects, magazines, and events that showcase the art, fashion, and beauty associated with the brand.
The store’s lifestyle elements are delicately integrated into each area, enhancing their functionality and contributing to a cohesive stylistic unity across the space.
The product areas and corresponding visual merchandising system were redesigned to maximize the space’s dynamism and flexibility.
– A live experiential dimension, located near the entrance, showcases brand content, the Marella customer community, and the latest capsule collections.
This new stage in the shop offers a visual break from the rest of the space and can be quickly transformed to captivate customers with fresh inspirations.
– The Stories is the space where the Marella brand identity is expressed and reinforced through storytelling about the brand’s designs and collections. This area features a more immersive approach to exploring and reading the products, encouraging customers to take the time to explore the content, details, and design of the garments.
– The creation of a new space beside the fitting area called the Refresh Room offers additional services to enhance the customer experience.
This space provides customers with an intimate area to relax and enjoy a moment before or after trying on garments.
The Refresh Room will also feature accessories, events, and co-branding activities in harmony with the new Marella customer experience.
The digital signage system was significantly enhanced to introduce new touchpoints with customers, while ensuring seamless integration with the overall customer experience and visual merchandising system.
The new in-store digital communication system will allow Marella to manage shop content from the head office, ensuring omnichannel customer communication and brand consistency, according to the strategic objectives defined in the business plan.
“The project is part of the brand’s ongoing evolution, aimed at establishing a unique and distinctive identity through a new customer experience and an interior design language that complements and updates the current one.”
Marco De Carli, CEO & Client Leader – DINN!
The evolution of the Marella brand was interpreted by creating a new design mood that updates the current image and incorporates elements from the new Marella woman manifesto. This new aesthetic is conveyed through materials, finishes, and a new model of digital communication, resulting in a more immersive and engaging experience that brings the brand’s content to life within the space.
“The design of the space takes inspiration from the metaphor of a woman’s skin, which, in its uniqueness, becomes a defining element of the new Marella aesthetic. This versatile “skin” is simple yet adorned with marble and reflective surfaces, transparent glass that plays with different shades of color to complement the displayed garments, resulting in a decisive, feminine, and distinctive image.”
Elena Prontera, Design Director
Special attention was given to the details of each element, from the display elements to the hangers, with custom-designed elements.
HOOK: The vertical strips are connected to the horizontal plexi display system by a copper hook, similar to a buckle, which was designed especially for the store. The result is a light structure that only becomes solid at the junction of its component parts.
TRAY: A set of mirrored trays, framed by a copper profile (a clear reference to the Community Bar) highlights and elevates the Marella accessories, creating a product highlight and a new storytelling possibility
MARBLE + ALUMINIUM: in contrast with the rough skin of the store, display systems made of luminous and reflective materials are interwoven: polished steel, marble and glass
GLASS: the glass tables contain a chromatic veil within them, with a play of overlapping transparencies, similar to those of the lightest fabrics
SHOWCASE: The showcase system is designed to respond to maximum compositional flexibility. Reference is made to the belt, which can be worn by any woman. Thanks to its system of pre-drilled belts, it allows the window display to be adapted to different compositions
