Liza Bruce Boutique

Unrealized Project

Co-Author: Dan Graham

Location: London

The shop faces an open sky and a park with gardens. Goods are displayed between the showcase windows and the curved two-way mirror. Passing shoppers can see images of both the clothes and themselves observing. These are superimposed due to the partial transparency of the two-way mirror as well as images of people inside on the partition. From the outside, there is an optical superimposition between the weak mirror reflection of the showcase window’s right angle glass corners and the anamorphic distorting perspective of the two-way mirror.

People who enter the shop and decide to walk into the display alcove will be able to see on the two-way mirror their body enlarged, anamorphically “fattened.” When they walk to the side of the two-way mirror in the main area they will see on the concave surface an image of themselves “miraculously” thinner. As the sunlight continuously changes due to the moving clouds, there is also a flux between the relative reflectivity against the relative transparency of the two-way mirror’s image.

The rubber floor surface, identical to that used in work-out gyms, gives the potential customer a feeling of buoyancy. The dressing room’s three interior walls are mirrorized, while the entrance door side consists of two sliding panels of perforated aluminium. As the sliding doors move, the interior mirrors re-reflect moiré patterns from the sliding door. The tiny holes of the perforated aluminium allow the person dressing/undressing to almost be seen naked. This effect caused by the small peep-holes, relates to the near-transparency