Store gallery: Timberland, Buchanan Street, Glasgow

Timberland is one of those retailers that seems to have been around forever and which, for many, is shorthand for a particular US-led outdoor, pioneer style of life. Its stores tend to have a lot of raw or reclaimed wood as part of the fit-out and graphics that feature the great outdoors.

At its heart, the Timberland brand is closely associated with rugged, yellow boots of the kind that will enable the wearer to go yomping while keeping feet insulated, comfortable and, for those who favour that kind of thing, stylish. And in terms of brand heritage this is one of the stronger and more easily recognised labels on the market.

Perhaps the most iconic Timberland store in the UK is the one in Westfield London, which has been open since the shopping centre welcomed its first customers back in 2008. But there are many other branches and almost every one is different, although they do all have interiors that would enable most shoppers to work out where they were if the name above the door was removed. The rugged outdoor interior is one that Timberland has, to a large degree, made its own.

Historic location

That said, there are exceptions. Head up to Glasgow’s Buchanan Street, the upscale pedestrianised thoroughfare that runs through the heart of the city centre and there is a Timberland store with a difference.

Located at number 61, the two-floor shop replaces a Puma store that was originally a tearoom. In the normal run of things this would hardly be cause for comment, but the Timberland shop is next door to The Willow Tea Rooms. Designed by Glasgow artist and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh, it is a landmark on any tour of the city centre.

Standing outside the Timberland store the carved and moulded red-brick frontage is characteristic of the Glasgow belle époque and the listed structure stands proud among its neighbours.

This has meant that Timberland has had to contend with the sensitivities that surround creating an interior where only certain kinds of renovation are allowed.

Yet this is a remarkable interior, both in terms of its ability to communicate what Timberland is about and in its adaptation of the space.

Step inside the entrance and two things are likely to strike the onlooker. The first is another door that is arched and ecclesiastical-looking and set into the left-hand wall.

This serves little purpose other than to look good, and it is hard to tell whether it might originally have been functional or not. Nonetheless, it does set a tone for the interior that might not normally be expected for retail of this nature.

The second element that is likely to prove eye-catching is the beaten-up looking white painted glass and rusted screen that is overhead. This serves to inform the shopper that there is another floor, accessed by a staircase at the back of the store. However, views of it are almost non-existent from this vantage point, owing to the nature of the screen, which has clearly been installed to create a rust-belt garage ambience.

After this, the rest of the shop begins to make its impression. Timberland is an intrinsically masculine proposition and the whole of the ground floor is therefore devoted to shoes and clothing for men, while kids and the women’s collections share the first floor.

To the right of the main door there is a wall of wooden shoe lasts. Timberland has used this visual merchandising trope in other stores, most notably Westfield London, and it is accompanied by a graphic featuring a bearded outdoor-looking type.

Overhead, pendant warehouse-style lights add to the feel that the shopper has perhaps stumbled into a factory of yesteryear.

Raw materials

Exposed brick wall forms the backdrop to the shoe display as well as a mid-shop that is filled with clothing displayed on metal and wood fixtures. The floor is wooden, naturally, and behind the wooden cash desk a single yellow Timberland boot sits in a recess and is surrounded by monochrome and sepia pictures of thekind that would readily be associated with the brand. This is an almost museum-like treatment of the core Timberland product.

As the shopper heads for the first floor, the backwall of the stairwell is home to a series of linked pipes that forms a geometric pattern and provides the onlooker with a potted history of major Timberland events, courtesy of boards detailing each one, which is attached to the pipes.

And for Timberland, perhaps the key date recently is its takeover in 2011 by the massive casualwear conglomerate VF Corporation, maker of Lee Jeans among many other products. This event too has its own board.

The first floor picks up the wooden ‘authentic’ feel of the ground floor and runs with it - wooden rafters have been applied to the ceiling.

Vintage leather chairs and banquettes provide resting areas, while the kids’ area is given a simpler and brighter treatment with a white wall that serves to highlight the more colourful nature of the stock.

Finally, the screen that is visible from the ground floor entrance also serves to provide a longstop for this floor and it is hard to resist the temptation to walk towards it to see how much of the ground floor is visible through and over it.

Much has been done in this store to ensure that it has its own distinctive identity - something that is hard to do in an area of the market where rough-and-ready interiors are pretty much the order of the day.

It also manages to be part of a chain, but not to feel as if it is. There is in this interior no sense of a format or store design template that has been rolled-out.

The interesting point about what Timberland has done in Glasgow is that it is both a response to a local environment and an attempt to create something different while remaining faithful to a retail brand.

Opened in the latter part of 2013, this store adds to the reasons that Glasgow’s shoppers now have for taking a stroll down Buchanan Street.