SNnl05_Feb06_Paris Gallery_engl arab.indd - Umdasch Shopfitting

High-profile cosmetics provide the second main sales area in addition to watches and jewellery.
The individual departments are situated in
the ‘treasure houses’ within the niches.
Paris Gallery, Dubai
The “treasure houses” of
the Ibn Battuta Mall
The Austrian shopfitters Umdasch Shop-Concept have just been awarded
the contract to provide the shopfitting of four luxury stores for Paris Gallery
in the United Arab Emirates. We therefore visited the Las Vegas of the
East, as Dubai is often called because of its cornucopia of tourism and
shopping facilities, in order to take a closer look at the Paris Gallery in the
Ibn Battuta Mall, which opened in autumn 2005.
The continuing boom in shopping malls is just one of the reasons why Umdasch
Shop-Concept has established a sales office in Dubai, which will now be
expanded to keep pace with market developments. The Paris Gallery contract
stands out amongst a number of current projects. Across a sales area totalling
35,000 m², a total of four projects are to be realised in Dubai and Abu Dhabi
in accordance with the planning concept drawn up by Portland Design. In the
case of the Paris Gallery, the clients are one of the leading trading companies
in the region, a member of the Al Fahim Group. The shops are luxury stores
with exclusive international brands at some 20 locations to date. The emphasis
lies on cosmetics, watches and jewellery, top-quality accessories and, increasingly,
fashion.
The first store to be fitted out by Umdasch Shop-Concept has just opened in
the Ibn Battuta Mall. The latter is a shopping centre designed for family shopping.
It comprises some 235 stores; no fewer than 70 international brands celebrated
their entry into the Dubai market here. The Paris Gallery covers an
area of 6,000 m² and attracts customers with a mixture of oriental exoticism,
spacious design and modern presentation of goods. The sales areas are linked
by a mall lined with shop windows. To the right and left are niches containing
the various departments in the form of ‘treasure houses’. The shopfitting is of
the highest quality, in line with the goods on offer, and consists of vitrines and
glass display tables with elegant surfaces. The experts from Umdasch in the
project management and construction departments could demonstrate their
professionalism and skills to the full. Lighting played an important role in the
overall concept. A ‘starry sky’ provides the background lighting, whilst the indirect
lighting in the shelving areas sets dramatic accents, and the focused light
in the vitrines presents the exclusive goods on display to best advantage.
Umdasch branch manager Christian Kronsteiner and his project team in
Dubai are currently working hard to complete three further stores for Paris
Gallery, two of which are in Abu Dhabi. But Umdasch also has plenty of other
work to do in the Middle East, as the list of other projects shows. Particularly
eye-catching is the largest indoor ski slope in the world, set in the vast ‘Mall
of the Emirates’. Here, Umdasch was responsible for the shopfitting of the
sports shop ‘Snow Pro’.