Studio Anagram is a furniture and product engineering group founded in 2007. It was established by Akihito Tachibana with the simple aim of working to bring the ideas of architects and designers to life, an aim it has achieved with remarkable success in the short time since inception.

In just 13 years since then, Studio Anagram has created over 11,000 pieces, with the practice’s intriguing name referencing its philosophy of recombining materials and techniques to produce something completely new.

One of its most recent projects is a testimony to the skills and artistry for which the practice is known.

CINOH is a fashion brand that has moved beyond strict gender guidelines to offer clothes for men and women that are bold, colourful and often androgynous in appeal. They are indisputably contemporary and the designs manage to make a success of that challenging dichotomy – undoubted comfort that is never at the expense of incredible style.

Fashion forward

Accordingly, when it came time to create the interiors of its refurbished store in the vibrant and fashionable district of Shibuya in Tokyo, the brand decided that, to do full justice to the CINOH name, it would turn to Studio Anagram to create the interior – the furniture, fittings and paint design. The project’s initial interior design was courtesy of Lines and Angles, an interior and product design studio headed by Tasuku Nishiwaki and established in 2012.

To realise those designs and create an environment that would brilliantly showcase CINOH’s edgy and contemporary fashion ranges, Studio Anagram utilised its strong ongoing partnership with Australian compay, Haymes Paint – focusing heavily on the brand’s Artisan Collection.

The project

Reflecting the street fashion vibe of Shibuya, Studio Anagram’s design for CINOH employs motifs referencing skatepark culture, with a fusion of new materials. The first directly managed iteration of the CINOH chain features a refined space, epitomising the elegance and simplicity of the brand.

Wrapped by curved walls reminiscent of a skatepark pool and glass screens, the fixtures and fittings resemble the mini ramps and banks that would be found in a skatepark.

Materials such as marble and terrazzo exude class and polish and are juxtaposed with the use of colourful mortar and special coatings to evoke that street feel.

But to truly fuse the two sides of the brand – masculine and feminine, powerful and gentle – Studio Anagram employed edgy black and iron rust elements to counterbalance a colour palette that revolves around pastels, giving that sharp street vibe a softer and more feminine touch and appeal.

Materials

The floor boasts uniquely designed terrazzo tiles, while Arttex resin mortar has been used for the furniture.

The final touches? The walls, which feature natural imported marble and a selection of paints from Haymes Paint’s Artisan Collection – Real Iron, Matte Polish/Pink Drift and Rendercoat/ White Stone. As explained on its website, CINOH is a brand that aims to produce clothing that is playful and yet mature. Its ethos is to create clothing that is “not only for momentary existence, but is long lasting in the wardrobe and the memory”. With the inspired fusion of the talents of Studio Anagram, Lines and Angles and Haymes Paint, its Shibuya store is now the perfect backdrop for that mission.

Studio Anagram

Haymes Paint