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MODERN DESIGNER PLIES ANCIENT ART OF FENG SHUI

By Edmund Mander

With its fluid lines and attractive displays Coldwater Creek is very feng shui.

Is the stock room door aligned with the entrance at your store? Oh dear. Does a mirror block a key merchandise display? Oops. Is the ceiling above your cash registers low? Watch out.

Retailers and mall owners answering “yes” to any of these questions are jeopardizing the health of their businesses by violating rules of design and placement that are very old — thousands of years old, in fact — warned Linda Cahan, president of Cahan & Co., a Reading, Conn.-based retail design consulting firm.

Stores as we know them might not have been around back when the principles of feng shui were established in China, but they are nevertheless very relevant to retail design, she said. So relevant, in fact, one might almost think some of the rules had been written with modern retail stores in mind.

Light, good air circulation and a sense of spaciousness are fundamental feng shui principles, for instance. “In feng shui, dark spaces are ‘no nos’ because they suck in all the energy,” Cahan said.

Feng shui also encourages the representation of a wide range of natural materials in the construction of interior spaces, she added, and frowns on the heavy use of modern creations such as sheet rock and nylon carpeting.

“You want to try and think of a way to bring all the elements into the space,” Cahan said, suggesting wood, some rock, various metals and water. For example, Cahan speaks glowingly about a Coldwater Creek women’s apparel and housewares store she visited in Seattle which, perhaps unknowingly, is one of the most feng shui-compliant retailers she has ever visited.

“They have a creek running through their store,” she said, explaining that this is a major ‘yes yes’ for feng shui. The retailer also uses natural building materials and plenty of lighting. “They do a really, really nice job.”

Coldwater Creek’s adherence to feng shui might be coincidental, according to David Gunter, the company’s spokesman. But this only goes to underline the compatibility of feng shui and the principles of good store design. The company likes to use colorful merchandise displays, and to group different items together according to theme rather than category, which is a very feng shui thing to do.

“We take a decidedly more colorful approach to merchandising,” he said, explaining that the company aims to provide its shoppers “a surprise around every corner.”

Feng shui — pronounced “fung shwee” or “shway” — literally means “wind water.” Water is so important that, while every retailer cannot be expected to have creeks running through the store, it should at least be represented through another medium — a fabric that shimmers, for instance.

Ceiling fans are one way to provide the feng part of the equation, she suggested. “When people walk into a place and the air is dead, they want to leave.”

Similarly, feng shui dictates that a room should feel open and spacious — another fundamental principle of retail design. While ceiling heights can be varied, nowhere should be they be too low, said Cahan, citing the dropped ceiling above a row of cashiers in one store that she said was responsible for some very bad-tempered staff.

Cahan taught visual merchandising at Parsons School of Design in New York City for 12 years, and wrote a book on the subject. She began studying feng shui eight years ago, and has advised a variety of retail clients, from The Mills Corp. to P.C. Richard, the electronics and appliance retailer.

Feng shui principles and good retail design coincide in a variety of other ways: Stores should use vibrant colors that will inspire shoppers, she explained. Mirrors must not obstruct displays (or they’ll block “the energy” of merchandise) and neither should they randomly reflect customers, because that bounces people’s energy right back at them.

“As mystical as it might be on one level, because it is talking about energy, it is also extremely practical,” Cahan said.

The same goes for the rule about keeping the stockroom door out of sight of the main entrance.

“The Chinese believe that if your front door and the back door are aligned, your money comes in the front door and goes out the back,” she said. At the very least, it certainly is not desirable to draw attention to a stockroom door.

“What that does is it makes your stockroom door the focal point, which is about the worst thing you can highlight,” she said. If the door can’t be moved, then at least put a mirror on it or hide it behind a short wall.

The feng shui approach to retail design can be taken even further. The Black Hat school of feng shui practiced in the United States and Britain breaks interiors into nine equal sections, in which the far left ninth of the floor area serves as the “wealth area,” Cahan said. If this happens to be the bathroom, and it can’t be put somewhere else — bathrooms are viewed as huge sources of negative energy, except, of course, by those who need to use them — add a little positive energy by placing a pot of geraniums in there, she said. If the wealth area happens to be where the stockroom is sited, it should be clean, tidy, and preferably painted red, which is good for energy.

The center section is the “point of balance,” and a good place for cash registers or a display of samples representing merchandise throughout the store. Department stores often make the horrendous mistake of placing their escalators in the center of the floor, which might explain a few things about the performance of department stores in recent years, Cahan said.

“That may be why the department stores are not doing that fabulously, because all the energy is leaving the floors.” It’s better to put escalators over to one side, she suggested, where they will not only satisfy the demands of feng shui but also will not interrupt sight lines.

For all the talk of “points of balance” and “wealth areas,” Cahan is anxious not to come across as some high priestess of feng shui. On the contrary, much of her advice has nothing to do with feng shui but is just plain common sense, she is quick to point out. Once, for instance, she was called in to try and figure out why one Saks Off Fifth store in The Mills Corp. chain of value megamalls was performing badly, while others were doing well. The problem had nothing to do with feng shui violations or store design violations of any kind; it turned out a lousy manager was demoralizing the staff, she said.

There are even instances where feng shui and good store design conflict, in which case it is important that the latter prevails, she stressed, recalling a Hong Kong shirt maker in Westport, Conn., who faithfully followed the design prescriptions of a feng shui master, and promptly, well, lost his shirt.

“Sometimes it doesn’t work with the architecture of the store,” said Cahan. Retailers also must take into account local customs and culture. For instance, for all the talk about energy-sapping bathrooms, retailers are nuts not to make them available to customers and noncustomers alike, she said.

“In order to do feng shui, it’s so important that someone has a strong retail background, otherwise they could screw up the store.”

 

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