Boutique on Rye

The Tel Aviv showroom for Israeli clothing line Delicatessen, by architect Guy Zucker, is inspired by the mutable nature of fashion itself. “Constant change is the most interesting thing about the fashion world,” he says. “I am always curious about where the line is drawn between the ephemeral and the stationary in architecture.” With that in mind Zucker set out to create a space that could be constantly and inexpensively reconfigured. “I started off looking for very cheap off-the-shelf materials,” he explains. “And the nature of the ones I settled on ended up defining my concept.” The affordable, transient nature of the project permitted playful touches within the showroom, such as the cardboard packing-tube segments mounted on a wall and stuffed with rolled-up shirts and the double-sided linoleum “clothing rack” inspired by poster shops, where shoppers can flip through outfits like pages. “These materials are taken out of their pedestrian context and transformed along with the space,” Zucker says. “It places importance on the quality of design, not the cost of its execution.”