The Dandy Lab: Pushing the boundaries in retail

'Discover. Shop. Learn and Share.' These are the four driving principles behind the newly opened menswear concept store 'The Dandy Lab' which aims to bring together the best of the physical and digital world. Founded by Peter Jeun Ho Tsang and Julija Bainiaksina, the store fuses fashion, lifestyle and technology to offer consumers a one-off retail destination, whilst placing British craftsmanship at its heart.

The Dandy Lab - bringing together the best of the physical and digital world

"The Dandy Lab is all about pushing the boundaries in retail," explains Ho Tsang in an interview with FashionUnited. "About how we can use data effectively, how can we augment the customer experience and create a ‘retail theater’ in the store and create something new and exciting for the customers." Featuring smart mannequins, shoppable mirrors, a virtual showroom, an interactive styling wall as well as coffee bar with wireless charging points, The Dandy Lab offers consumers a new way to explore and connect with British brands.

The duo spent over a year planning the store's retail concept, working closely together with their main partner the University College London, who introduced them to other sponsors and partners which include Cisco, Iconeme and Snap Fashion. "The technological partners came on board first actually and then all of our fashion brands came on board later after we knew the store location and how things were going to look like," reveals Ho Tsang. Offering brands such as Smyth & Gibson, Alfie Douglas and London Terrariums, and Ho Tsang own brand Coeur, the founders hope to become something of a retail destination.

'We want to be a retail destination'

"We designed a lot of the store’s interior dynamically. For example quite a lot of our fashion brands (they have 38 in total) are exclusive to our store. They have chosen to work with us over the big department stores in the UK, so I think helps set us apart from other retailers. We have a really good product selection and I think the product we offer speaks for itself. If I think about the different retailers out there, they are exploring these new technologies, but no one has done it in the way we have."

Located at the Old Spitalfields Market in Shoreditch, the perfect location for the store according to Ho Tsang, The Dandy Lab is separated into different categories to make it easier on the consumer. "Me and the creative team have worked really hard to ensure that everything works well together, so that a man can walk in and find everything he needs to suit his lifestyle and complete his look within the store. It is not just fashion we offer in store but also things like candles, stationery and art." For example, the store has a morning zone, which the grooming supplies and beauty products are displayed, an everyday collections zone, which features ready-to-wear ranges and accessories and an artisan corner featuring Smyth & Gibson, who offer shirts and bespoken made-to-measure shirts.

"But the whole store is very clean and curated, allowing the customer to easily explore the store." However, a customer does not even have to physically enter the store in order to interact with The Dandy Lab's offering. "We have shoppable windows, so customers can interact with the mannequins to see what they are wearing and purchase items directly from an app, even when we are close, thanks to our partner Iconeme" says Ho Tsang, a LCF graduate. "We also have the 'Snap styling wall.' We partnered with Snap Fashion for the wall and its the first time they have gone into a physical setting. How it works is when a customer takes a photograph in-store the wall reads what colors they are wearing and tells them what product in-store it thinks would go with the outfit."

'Our selling factor is the technology'

The Dandy Lab also plans on working closely with all its fashion brands to offer exclusive events as well like trunk shows, workshops and demonstrations in store. "When we think about the sharing aspect of the store, we are doing things like live-streaming with our designers and customers, we have wireless charging points downstairs and a coffee bar which are encouraging customers to hang out in the store." However, Ho Tsang believes that it is the technology offered throughout the store that really sets the Dandy Lab apart.

"Our selling factor is the technology. It is about the fact that you can pick a product up, which will activate the in store screens and tell you all about that product. You can create a very engaging experience with the consumer...I love the RFID tagging system. All the products in the store are tagged, which is great not only from a consumer point of view, but also for the back-office. Since we will be gathering a lot of data in-store we can use that data to help push products even further. We can starting tracking which are the favourite products, which ones are the most scanned and picked up and in doing so we can actually help designers with their future collections and give them a demographic point of view."

The store, which is set to run for a minimum of 7 months, is on lease for 2 years and Ho Tsang hopes they will be able to remain for the entire period. If all goes according to plan, he hopes to move to a more permanent location with more floor space. "If we have 4 or 5 floors, with all of our technologies we can do quite interesting things per floor. With all of our technologies we can activate different lighting options, different climate controls, different displays and so on. So that is one angle moving forward. Then the second angle would be rolling out our store concept to key cities all over the world, like Tokyo, Hong Kong and New York. We would take all of our British brands with us and put them out there to share their stories in a place that would normally not be possible for them."