You have until this Sunday 20th May to catch the amazing Flipside a multi-sensory exhibition curated by Google and Selfridges at The Old Selfridges Hotel. The free exhibition provides a thought-provoking journey into luxury as some of the most forward-thinking brands and creative minds intersect with radical ideas.
Selfridges has designed The Flipside space to be the alter-ego to its Accessories Hall. The Flipside draws inspiration from the Accessories Hall with circular elements featured throughout, referencing the half-moon shaped Fount Bar and the distinctive orb lighting. In other ways, the design shows stark contrast to the Accessories Hall, using high gloss black flooring, featuring mirrors widely and dim lighting. With time being as the ultimate luxury, sundials and clever shadows will feature throughout the space, inviting customers to lose all concept of time.
The experience starts from the moment you see the entrance: a large circular, strategically lit, revolving door inspired by a flipping coin. From arrival you are directed through a corridor and up a grand staircase to the first floor of the hotel where the experience continues. To distort time, conflicting shadows are used throughout the journey. On entering the main space you are guided across raised flooring to each of the seven brands.
Google Pixel 2 Your luxury portrait. Captured on Google Pixel 2.
Google Pixel 2 gives you the tools to create your own definition of luxury. Showcasing the low-light capabilities of the Google Pixel 2, this unique installation invites you to explore a breadth of visual expressions. You are invited to select your own definitions of luxury and use them to create a personal portrait shot on the Google Pixel 2 which can then be shared on social media.
Upon embarking on The Flipside exhibition, everyone will has the opportunity to loan a Google Pixel 2 device to take incredible high quality images of the installation, and they can also book in to join a Google Pixel 2 tour led by notable photographers such as Alistair Guy and Shezimanezi.
BYREDO
Byredo explores radical luxury through a dystopian future where fresh water will be amongst the most precious of things.
“The notion of luxury to me, is closely linked to that of scarcity”
Ben Gorham, Founder and Creative Director of Byredo
LOUIS VUITTON Radical Journey
Journey across fragmented islands where an abundance of crystals, vivid colours and unfamiliar species appear as you navigate the infinite possibilities tomorrow may hold. Louis Vuitton invites you to explore a deeply modern way of looking at travel, bringing to life a fantastical world that translates the House’s vision of the future. The experience draws parallels between Louis Vuitton’s emblematic styles such as the trunk and today’s new classics, highlighting how these designs are evolving in a space and time when luxury is expressed as an experience. In this captivating installation, the modernity of today takes on the intense colours of tomorrow’s great discoveries.
GARETH PUGH Void: Enter the void and discover a very personal luxury.
In what is at once an intimate portrait and an expansive piece of video art, Pugh a designer who is known for shattering boundaries presents an immersive installation that presented on two mirrored screens sets out to create a space where time dilates, prompting an awareness of being.
Shot in Pugh’s hometown in the North East of England, the piece touches on themes of escape, freedom and clarity, which the designer describes as his most treasured luxuries.
LOEWE The Future is Green
Imagine a future where nature, craft and tradition work hand in hand.
Enter a forest of sculptural forms, each echoing the shape of wooden Spanish winepresses, which are now intertwined with Loewe as a sculptural element present in the brand’s stores a nod to the rich history and craft of the land where Loewe was born. In this metaphorical landscape, vertical forms multiply in a sea of reflective surfaces, signifying a limitless future in which Earth’s resources are protected from harmful pollutants through intelligent design and creativity. The central piece conveys a tropical forest growing inside one of the brand’s most iconic products, the Puzzle bag, seen here in a special transparent version.
THOM BROWNE Dreamscape
Let the master cast his spell…
Theatrical, captivating and other-worldly: designer Thom Browne is a master of the fashion items from his collection appear before you in a surreal mirroring of a music box, showing luxury fashion at its most magical. Inspired by dreams of fantastical creatures – from mermaids to unicorns fashion lovers.
MR LYAN The Libationary
What spirits capture your spirit? Which tastes reveal your temperament? Welcome to the future of personalised goods.
Award-winning bartender Mr Lyan (AKA Ryan Chetiyawardana) is world-renowned for his creations including those at our Fount Bar in store but what might his cocktails be like 10 years from now? Here at The Libationary, we invite you to explore the evolution of personalised goods. Step into the future where a series of questions and interactions will determine your personal cocktail taste.
SELFRIDGES The Shadow Dial
Explore the luxury of time at the heart of The Flipside, as time slows to a stop. Using a combined visual language of two universal time-keeping techniques, sundials and mechanical clocks, The Selfridges Shadow Dial abstracts the experience of a sundial into a one-hour clock, letting time expand and contract inside the dream of a half-minute day. The movement and build of light and sound pulls you towards the centre, so that you become the point around which light pushes shadows in a perfect rotation. Each person who takes up this position travels with time, watching moments move in an endless encircling of now. Whether you stand on the side or at the centre, your shadow journey is all your own; utterly unique to your position.
The Flipside is a free exhibition open to all and tickets can be booked now at www.selfridges.com/flipside
*Last day is this Sunday 20th May*
