SOPHIE HICKS ARCHITECTS

INTERIOR DESIGN MAGAZINE

GANGNAM WHAT?

By Mairi Beautyman. Photographs by Annabel Elston. April 2016

Sophie Hicks’s spare ACNE boutique in Seoul, South Korea, is the opposite of pop.

The Gangnam district of Seoul was single-handedly catapulted into the world’s consciousness by the horse-trot dance moves and universally catchy beat of Psy’s self-deprecating video for “Gangnam Style.” Four years later, this poke at the lavish lifestyle of the toniest district in the South Korean capital holds tight to its position as the most popular YouTube video of all time. Satire or no, style there certainly is in this luxury retail wonderland, home to boutiques for Chanel, Christian Dior, Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, and more.

A glimpse of signage beckons shoppers down a side street near the river to find still another label, “The sensation of solitude is extremely rare this city of over 10 million” Sweden’s ACNE Studios. (That’s an acronym in English: Ambition to Create Novel Expressions.) ACNE creative director Jonny Johansson brought in Sophie Hicks Architects from London to design the freestanding building after admiring the firm’s worldwide Chloé boutiques, paneled in raw plywood. To set off ACNE’s bold, multicolored clothing for both women and men, statement pieces that Sophie Hicks calls “very punchy and, at the same time, forward-thinking,” she envisioned a two-story structure resembling a ghostly light box with “very little outward expression.”

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MAGAZINES

YAMAMOTO & YOHJI, RIZZOLI

EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK
Contribution by Sophie Hicks
Photographs by Milo Keller and Johannes Marburg
November 2014

CULTURED MAGAZINE

THE ART OF THE FASHION FLAGSHIP
By John Glendall
Photograph of Acne Studios Seoul by Annabel Elston
April/May 2019

SHOTENKENCHIKU

OVERSEAS INTERIOR, YOHJI YAMAMOTO PARIS CAMBON
By Shotenkenchiku
Photographs by Takumi Ogihara
May 2009

VOGUE ITALIA

INTERVISTA A SOPHIE HICKS
Words by Sennait Ghebreab
Photography by Adrian Gaut, Alasdair McLellan, Hong Kiwoong and Shin Hyo Geun
June 2026

PIN-UP

SOPHIE HICKS – THE ALAÏA-CLAD STYLIST WHO REFITTED HERSELF AS AN ARCHITECT
By Emily King
Photographs by Andreas Larsson
Fall/Winter 09/10

NUMERO

SOPHIE HICKS, LA SCIENCE DES VOLUMES
By Clara Le Fort
Photo by Johannes Marburg
September 2016

THE MODERN HOUSE

ARCHITECT SOPHIE HICKS ON LIFE IN HER HIDDEN CONCRETE HAVEN IN KENSINGTON
by The Modern House
Summer 2023