Challenge

Acne Studios wanted to evolve their annual festive bow into something more strategic and expressive. The task was to connect the installation with the Craft Pop campaign, introduce product for the first time and shift the bow from a static seasonal symbol to a crafted piece of storytelling.

Designing for a global rollout added complexity. Acne Studios’ stores vary dramatically in scale, architecture and personality, so the concept needed to flex without losing its identity or impact.

Insight

Craft at Acne Studios is bold, raw and experimental. It celebrates process as much as polish, rooted in a culture built on making, testing and reworking. The installation needed to align with the brand’s holiday campaign, which spotlights the materials and ideas behind the season.

We reimagined the bow through this lens, looking at fabrics like denim and shirting in their uncut state and imagining them unfurling into form. The concept, called The Unrolling of the Bow, made the making visible and created a playful, pop-inspired link between campaign, material and product.

Solution

We sculpted a new expression of the bow using offcuts of shirting fabric sourced locally and stitched by hand in our London workshop. The result was a tactile, fabric-led structure that captured the imperfections and texture at the heart of Acne Studios’ aesthetic.

To make the concept work worldwide, we developed three scalable design tiers. Large freestanding bows anchored flagship stores. Mid-size spaces used wall or table-top versions. Smaller stores received compact bow bullets designed to sit on rails or bag shelves. Each expression shared the same crafted, process-led identity.

Close collaboration with the brand’s art direction team ensured the physical installation aligned with the Holiday visual world. The final outcome delivered a crafted seasonal signature that connected product, campaign and store experience in a fresh and expressive way.