SOPHIE HICKS ARCHITECTS

Your design uses some quite particular details like the imprint on the concrete of wooden boards that form the paths from water to beaches in Sweden. That’s very specific, where did that come from?
“I think all Swedes seem to feel an incredibly strong link to nature, and they all have this love of the islands. Jonny certainly does. There’s this incredibly strong link to this quiet, reflective, modest lifestyle. The boardwalks in those islands, they’re so simple and so undesigned and unfancy. The architecture is all small wooden
houses. I thought to have the imprint of the wood on the concrete would give a small link to the natural world.”

Your design uses some quite particular details like the imprint on the concrete of wooden boards that form the paths from water to beaches in Sweden. That’s very specific, where did that come from?
“I think all Swedes seem to feel an incredibly strong link to nature, and they all have this love of the islands. Jonny certainly does. There’s this incredibly strong link to this quiet, reflective, modest lifestyle. The boardwalks in those islands, they’re so simple and so undesigned and unfancy. The architecture is all small wooden
houses. I thought to have the imprint of the wood on the concrete would give a small link to the natural world.” no obvious decoration inside the store. Concrete is very important and there’s a metallic backdrop for the clothes. It’s pristine and all the pipework is on the roof.
“They’re quite Viking the Swedes. And they don’t mince their words. They don’t decorate the way they are, or their conversation. They’re quite blunt. It seemed to me that the key part of the building should be very raw and unadorned, forceful and strong. That was really the starting point. I call it the concrete monster, but it’s really a concrete being, I suppose, or beast. Once you’ve got your beast, then you need to put it in a home. We toyed with how we could encase the beast. And eventually, we came upon this polycarbonate, which we used, but it could have been glass or anything. But the idea is that the beast is encased in its own display case, but because the Swedish character is also quite modest and a little shy, it’s in a display case but the case is not transparent.”

How does its Korean setting work with the design?
“It’s in a little grotty car park, surrounded by really ugly different backs of buildings. It’s quite a fabulous location. The setting is very important. It’s really a conversation between Acne Studios and Sweden and Korea. Acne Studios is a bit of a destination shop, they tend to not be on the main street. They see themselves as something a little bit apart and certainly forward thinking. The store is in a perfect location, because it is slightly hidden, off one of the interesting lanes on the hills in Gangnam, which makes it a little bit exclusive. Also it is around the corner from Corso Como and Boon The Shop, which are the two most stylish multi-brand shops in Seoul. It’s exactly right.”

So you have to be in the know?
“Ish, the Koreans are real professional shoppers – they know everything!”

On your website, you identify a moment where fashion houses consciously decided they wanted to make more than just stores for shopping, places that offer another kind of experience, on top of the clothing itself. How have you seen that evolve in recent years?
“I’m not a shopper to be honest. I only want to go to a shop if I know there’s something interesting for sale there, because I don’t like shopping if I don’t have to. Also, another strange thing is that I make a conscious effort not to look at all the new stores because I think it’s too distracting. I look more in airport stores, because they’re difficult and they’re really under scrutiny. I’ll look at technical specifics, like how various problems with lighting have been solved. Those big swanky stores that have art and ‘experience’ and stuff – I’m not really interested in that. I think shops are for shopping. Also, it’s always bad art, it’s always a bad fit. When have you been into a shop and thought: ‘Ooh wow! Who is that painter?’ They always jump on the bandwagon after someone’s become established, so it seems to me.”

You’re known for a very distinct personal style, in terms of how you dress. Most people go through quite a bit of experimentation before hitting on what feels right for them. Was that your experience or have you always been very definite about what you want clothing wise?
“I like to wear clothes that I feel really comfortable in, and so I don’t experiment with looks. I’m not out to make a splash. I guess I’ve had the same approximate look in clothes since I was about 18 or something. With slight variations. I went through an Alaïa phase when I was working at British Vogue. He has incredible tailoring, so I could do my look in his clothes, which was fabulous. He made the best classic pleat front trousers ever.”

In terms of your own route into architecture, Madonna cancelling a big shoot at the eleventh hour that you were creating with Azzedine Alaïa, is often referred to as your light-bulb moment. But presumably there were other reasons. You’d started so young working in fashion, editing a teen issue of Harpers and Queen in 1977 when you were seventeen. Did you feel like you’d achieved everything you could?
“Well, I’d always wanted to do architecture from the age of 13 or 14. When I came to choose my A Levels against everyone’s advice, I thought I’d better take maths. So I’d had it at the back of my mind. I loved working in the fashion world. At 17, what is more fun? It feels frivolous, exciting, but also creative. You meet interesting funny people. After a while I thought two things. I was only 26, and I saw the fashion coming round. I remember one or two things had gone full circle. I thought: Hang on a minute, if it’s gone full circle already, how many more times around the circle am I going to have to go, before I think that’s enough?’ I didn’t like the repetition.
“The other thing is that I was rather excited about actually creating something myself, rather than working with other people’s creativity. It’s a silly story the Madonna one. It was like that, but really it just kick-started me into doing what I wanted to do.”

How difficult was it going back to school when you’d already had an established career and a professional identity?
“Well you have to keep a low profile. I went to the Architectural Association. You don’t want to draw attention to yourself. You want to suss the place out and find your path, because you’re starting something new and experimenting. I thought it was very important to keep quiet. So most of the students in the classes I took had no
idea what my previous life had been. There was one girl who I did a joint project with who knew what I’d been up to because she liked clothes. I remember standing in the bar at the AA with her, filthy dirty because I’d been making stuff, welding and stuff, in our overalls, having a beer with smears of dirt on our faces and under our fingernails. She looked at me, I just said: ‘God, at Vogue, they’d never have thought would they!’”