Puma Select’s Johannesburg store uses adapted and repurposed store design principals to create an innovative and flexible visual design.

Flexibility is one of those things that retailers frequently say that they want when putting together a new store, but the reality is that stores are set in stone, more often than not, once they are open.

Not so at the newly opened Puma Select store, the better end of the sports brand’s offer, in Johannesburg. Here a space has been created by London consultancy Brinkworth and The Wilson Brothers designed to provide the retailer with a totally modular interior that can be changed at the pull of a wooden plug.

The store is in fact the product of working with a traditional pegboard system of the kind that was once common in shops and offices, but which has now all but disappeared.

Now it has been reborn, but this time using an upscale wooden palette of materials that enables the store to be almost completely changed quickly and easily. The real point, however, is that not only is all of this in-built flexibility useful, but it also looks good.

The neutral nature of the wood and metal frames that contain it means they do not overshadow the product and shoppers will admire what has been done without being distracted from the main attraction.

Even the fitting room curtains have been printed with a pegboard-like pattern that mirrors what has been done in the rest of the store. Overall, the design also provides Puma with the opportunity for rollout to almost any space in any location.

This is the second Puma Select store that has opened, the first being in Cape Town earlier this year. Sometimes the simplest things are the most effective and this is a good instance of an existing idea that has been adapted and repurposed.