The archive · Design & Visual · Marketing decision · 2022
Jacquemus turns Selfridges into a scented South-of-France summer to launch Le Bleu
Jacquemus launched Le Bleu by filling Selfridges with playful interactive installations and a commissioned scent of a South-of-France summer.
Jacquemus · Random Studio
What it had to solve
Random Studio created intermingling spatial design and interactive scenography for Jacquemus on the occasion of its new collection, Le Bleu. The challenge was to make the launch feel like more than new products: a mood and a place people could walk into.
How it works
When Jacquemus prepared its new collection, Le Bleu, the launch task was not to show more clothes but to make people feel the brand's world. Random Studio answered with a multisensory experience that unfolded in and around London's Selfridges — a series of playful indoor and outdoor spatial interventions evoking a hot summer in the South of France.
The environment did what mannequins cannot: a commissioned scent scape infused the store with nostalgia for southern summers, while the interventions asked visitors to take part rather than simply browse. The brand's signature wit ran through each space, so a shopping trip read as a holiday away from the everyday.
For Jacquemus, the department store itself became the medium for Le Bleu. D&AD carries the work in its awards archive under Spatial Design; the page records no footfall or sales figures, so what is documented is the idea — a launch staged as an atmosphere you walk through, smell and touch.
Why it lands
- It sells a feeling rather than a garment: a scent of the South of France carries the collection's mood without a word of product copy.
- Interaction turns visitors into participants, so the launch becomes an experience people remember instead of a display they pass.
- A store-wide environment lets a fashion brand take over a whole retail setting, turning Selfridges' footfall into Jacquemus's audience.
- Interventions that spill outdoors extend the launch beyond the shop floor, meeting shoppers before they even reach the department.
What it did
Visitors walked through the world of Le Bleu rather than past a display: scent, interaction and spatial design turned a department store visit into a memorable holiday away from the everyday. D&AD carries the work in its awards archive under Spatial Design; the page records no footfall or sales figures, so the case rests on the environment itself.
What you can take
A launch can be a place rather than a poster: when a brand's world can be smelled and played with inside a store, the memory of the environment carries the collection further than any rack of samples.
Since then
The Selfridges scenography joined the D&AD awards archive under Spatial Design, keeping the Le Bleu launch on record as an environment rather than an ad. The archive page records no visitor or sales figures; what it documents is the approach — a fashion collection staged as a multisensory place, with scent and interaction doing the work of a campaign.
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