The Beauty Hall Of The Future Is Interactive

One of the most interesting trends of late has been for luxury brands to incorporate digital experiences into retail environments. Burberry and the new McQ store are just two examples of brands who’ve integrated all sorts of digital wizardry into their recently relaunched stores.

Commissioned by luxury LVMH skincare brand NUDE to design an in-store concept for Selfridges Beauty Hall, The Barn designed the pop-up Skin Nutrition Bar and created the interactive Skin Nutrition IPad app.

NUDE Skincare, founded by Ali Hewson (founder with husband Bono of fashion brand Edun) and Brian Meehan (Fresh &Wild), was created to provide natural skincare with high performance results.

Taking their cue from this ethos The Barn were tasked with creating a modern and fresh treatment area echoing NUDE’s brand identity. Conveying a feeling of fluidity, light, warmth and simplicity visitors to the Skin Nutrition Bar are offered a skin-health check, relaxing mini-facial as well as a healthy juice shot that reinforces the brand’s message that great skin starts from the inside out. The bar reflects a growing trend in luxury retail to offer customers an opportunity to interact with brands and is in line with LVMH’s conscious move towards creating experiential interactive instore environments.

The Skin Nutrition IPad app lies at the heart of the pop-up bar and was created to add flexibility and personalise the traditional cosmetics counter experience.  Using the app to answer a series of questions about their skin type customers can, if they prefer, determine their own skincare recommendations without the help of a member of the NUDE pro-team.

Gone too are the days of taking away a scrap of easily-lost paper with product recommendations; visitors to the Nutrition Bar are instead conveniently emailed a tailor-made digital skincare and dietary prescription.

The consultation is personalised further with a photo (taken on the IPad) using the specially created ‘You Are More Beautiful NUDE’ photo filter designed to enhance the results of the facial. To spread the buzz of the in-store experience online the app enabled invited customers to share their photo with friends on Facebook or tweet about it using the hashtag #YouAreMoreBeautifulNUDE.

The Nutrition Bar concept was a hit with both press and consumers alike, so much so that Selfridges invited NUDE to extend the bar’s stay in the Beauty Hall.  Barny Macaulay, Creative Director and Founder of The Barn, sums up it’s appeal saying, “by creating this exciting and meaningful customer experience NUDE have placed a marker down that truly reflects the brand’s position as a pioneering and relevant leader in skincare.”