Green Room has completed an extensive retail design and delivery project in Dubai for Jawad Business Group, a major fashion, food retailing and distribution enterprise operating across Middle East. The retail and digital design practice has delivered the new flagship Shoe Citi store at the Mall of the Emirates, described as the ultimate leisure, entertainment and shopping resort and attracting over 31 million visitors each year.

Shoe Citi is Jawad’s own label footwear and accessories brand, positioned as ‘the home of shoes’ and retailing top-end brands such as Hush Puppies, Skechers, Nike, Reebok and Clarks. The Mall of the Emirates store opened on Tuesday 1st October and points towards a new design direction for the 14-strong chain.

Green Room has been responsible for developing an all-new design concept for Shoe Citi, incorporating customer experience, merchandising, in-store navigation and individual brand positioning. The overall remit was to elevate Shoe Citi’s overall proposition, providing a gentle evolution away from the brand’s ‘traditional value’ stance to extend the store’s appeal to a new and younger audience.

In addition to attracting shoppers, the new design will also play an important part in Shoe Citi’s overall expansion plans. The new design permits a wider range of brands to be marketed, with the merchandising scope required by higher profile brands integral to the new store design and navigation. Meanwhile, the new premium aesthetic paves the way to stores relocating into more favourable units within existing Malls, as well as expanding to other locations throughout the Middle East.

Richard Ash, Green Room’s CEO & Founder said: “This has been an interesting project to work on, calling on much our accumulated expertise to ensure the right blend between Jawad’s commercial aspirations for Shoe Citi, the demands of target customers, and good quality retail design. It’s always satisfying to see a concept progress from computer screen to reality, especially when we’ve retained full control over all facets of the store design. We now look forward to rolling the concept out across the rest of the Shoe Citi estate in the coming months.

“Green Room is increasingly tackling projects in overseas markets including Europe, America, Australia. Our track record in successfully working with local clients, retailers, malls, local project managers and local suppliers is strong and this nature of project is indicative of the sort of briefs global brands trust Green Room to deliver.”

Imteyaz Khan, General Manager, Jawad Business Group comments: “Green Room has been a diligent and creative partner throughout this process. The team’s understanding of consumer behavior and how retail design can influence this is second to none in my experience, and this is matched by strong commercial acumen and empathy with our business objectives. We are very pleased with the new format Shoe Citi and are now looking to implement the design across the full portfolio of stores.” Green Room won the commission to develop the new retail concept following a global three-way pitch.