More than just being fun eye candy, great glasses frames also manage to convey a deeper sense of one’s personality — and the same is true of thoughtful retail designs. For the new Berlin outpost of Spanish eyewear brand Miller & Marc, local studio Coordination pulled from both local vernacular and from its client’s Spanish heritage to deliver an expressive character study.
![The exterior of eyewear boutique Miller & Marc Berlin featuring a ground-floor retail space with floor-to-ceiling windows.](https://www.azuremagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Azure-Coordination-MillerMarc-6.jpg)
Opened on a corner of Auguststrasse, a street in Berlin’s Mitte district that is known for its art galleries, Miller & Marc’s storefront features floor-to-ceiling windows that offer a clear view of the colourful scene inside. Throughout the 88-square-metre space, a fun two-tone palette combines rich terracotta and bright blue hues — both nods to Miller & Marc’s Spanish origins.
![The cashier counter at eyewear boutique Miller & Marc Berlin is a rounded terracotta desk with a floral bouquet on top of it in front of creamy curtains.](https://www.azuremagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Azure-Coordination-MillerMarc-9-1.jpg)
White shelving units are another international import, repurposed from a former Miller & Marc location back in Spain. As a B-Corp certified brand, the eyewear company has long embraced recycled materials in its designs, and Coordination was intent on bringing this same environmental ethos to the shop’s interiors.
![A view of the full retail space at Miller & Marc Berlin featuring white shelving units stocked with eyeglasses and a central terracotta display counter.](https://www.azuremagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Azure-Coordination-MillerMarc-8.jpg)
While the colour scheme and shelving speak to the brand’s roots, other aspects of the design draw from Berlin’s design identity. Custom furnishings — most prominently, an oval-shaped display counter at the heart of the shop — are both locally fabricated and locally influenced, pulling from the brutalist architecture constructed in Berlin during the 1970s and 80s.
![Looking down the rounded terracotta display counter at the heart of Miller & Marc Berlin past rows of glasses to the fitting area at the back.](https://www.azuremagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Azure-Coordination-MillerMarc-3.jpg)
Along with structuring a wide-open space that is easy to browse, the store’s arrangement of rounded and straight-lined forms also evokes the pairing of circular lenses and long temples that characterize rimmed eyewear.
![Creamy curtains border the perimeter of Miller & Marc Berlin. To the side is a rounded vertical mirror.](https://www.azuremagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Azure-Coordination-MillerMarc-2.jpg)
For all its conceptual appeal, the store still ensures that each pair of frames on offer is able to convey its own distinct charms. Indeed, by positioning Miller & Marc’s eyewear on white shelves against cream-coloured curtains, Coordination achieves a design that complements rather than overpowers the products on offer. Talk about having a clear perspective on retail.