Milan’s menswear store Biffi B-Contemporary, part of Biffi Group Boutiques counting five prestigious boutiques between Milan and Bergamo and the biffi.com e-commerce program, has recently started a redesign and an overall refreshing of its concept. Carla Cereda Biffi, Head of Buying of Gruppo Biffi Boutiques, who, together with the group’s co-founder Rosy Biffi head the new project’s DNA, explained The SPIN OFF what it’s all about.
The Biffi B-Contemporary store has recently renovated its image and concept. What new steps have you taken?
The operation is part of a plan of reorganization and change that involves our company and includes investments and numerous projects that concern both e-commerce and physical stores, with an important focus on restyling, expansion of the brand mix and shopping experience.
Can explain how the company is reorganizing itself?
Speaking about our physical stores, our projects include, for instance, restyling initiatives as we started last September with our Banner store and continued with Biffi B-Contemporary. We also want to open a new multifunctional space within Milan’s Golden Quadrilateral – Spazio Banner, – a location next to our Banner boutique, at the moment destined to host temporary and special projects in conjunction with the world of art and design. We also want to focus on an enrichment of the brand mix with dedicated capsule and limited edition collections, along with special projects that can make the physical and digital shopping experience even more unique.
The store already had its own identity, but our intent was to recalibrate our selection of brands by expanding the proposal and addressing a young customer with a specific product culture and a strong personality, who entering our store may be intrigued and inspired.
What brands is the store offering?
We thought of creating a space where we can offer brands with undisputed value weight such as Stone Island, C.P. Company, Barbour International, and niche collections such as Bode, Rhude, Marni, Handle with Freedom and Too Good for Carhartt can live together, in a dimension that we believe is strongly contemporary.
Biffi B-Contemporary wants to be a container in which established brands interact with emerging and niche brands. We want to become a meeting point where we can host special projects, capsules and limited editions, in a constantly evolving mix.
How has the store changed its image? What inspiration guided this evolution?
The choice of changing the image was made according to the creation of a welcoming space where you can find inspiration and be intrigued by the proposals presented. The image reflects our Milanese DNA and Biffi’s own philosophy and aesthetic.
Is the store designed using sustainable criteria or raw materials? Can you describe which ones?
One of the criteria used in the restyling project was the recovery of design objects linked to our history, in particular some elements of furniture and decoration designed for us by the famous architect Toni Cordero in the ‘80s, like, for instance, the iconic iron table, in a tribute that Nori Studio has been able to recontextualize in a very current key.
We have several brands with a sustainable philosophy. To name a few, Veja sneakers, Bode's creations and the repurposed garments of Handle with Freedom which are literally treated with freedom in the sense of taking care of a garment, according to a philosophy of care and creative reuse.
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