Fresh's New Union Square Look: Part Kitchen, Part Bakery

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For its first brand-wide renovation in twenty years, beauty company Fresh hired the Bowery-based architectural firm Mapos. It took many weekly meetings, some of which turned into day-long debates, but in the end the firm's designers settled on four types of places to use as inspiration: A bakery, a kitchen, a library, and an alchemist's lab.

The result, which just went live in the Union Square store, incorporates a big walnut "kitchen" table, a chandelier with beaker-like glass bulbs, and glass display cases that show off colored soaps like so many macarons. (Squint at the photos in the gallery above, and you could almost be looking at Ladurée.) Shoppers can customize their own scents at the fragrance bar, try out beauty products at the experience bar, and get presents wrapped at the gift bar. Union Square is the first store to get the Mapos treatment, but the new concept should roll out in Fresh locations across the country soon.
· Fresh [Official Site]
· Mapos [Official Site]