Chicago shoppers will be the first to see a new retail prototype when Banana Republic opens in this fall on the site of the former Evans store, 744 N. Michigan Ave.
Barricades signaling the renovation and signs announcing the retail change have been up for several weeks. What the signs don`t say is that officials of the Gap, which owns Banana Republic stores, have turned to New York architect Robert A.M. Stern to develop a new look, inside and out, for the chain`s future stores.
”It is the next concept for Banana Republic,” says Graham Wyatt, the Stern partner in charge of the revamp. ”The intention is that this will be taken to other Banana Republic stores.”
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For Stern-probably best known to Americans for his 1986 eight-part series ”Pride of Place: Building the American Dream” on PBS-this project is a departure.
”We`re not a firm that specializes in retail,” says Wyatt.
Originally a purveyor of safari-style clothing in stores featuring the elaborate jungle decor of a movie set, Banana Republic has eased away from
”The Out of Africa” look (in interiors, as well as clothes).
So how will the new look differ from the old?
”We don`t have elephants jumping through the display window,” said Wyatt. ”We like the idea of exotic travel and places, but forms are more abstract. We will use leather and wood in ways that imply tropical
architecture. It is a more sophisticated jungle than before.”