Destin Jewelers

In 2007, Burwell Associates was hired by Destin Jewelers, a prominent local jewelry retailer, to design a new tenant build-out in Miramar Beach, Florida. The retailer’s branding had just been overhauled the previous year, and the client wanted the new store to reflect the new brand.

Burwell Associates worked closely with both the client and the branding company to ensure that the new store design reflected the jewelry company’s brand, which encompassed fanciful and whimsical patterns and colors. One of the most critical design challenges was to reuse costly existing jewelry display cases that, if used without any modifications, would be incongruous with the new store brand.

The concept of the new store layout was based on a simple yet strong central circulation axis with a dramatic central atrium as the celebrated visual focus of the store. Highlights of this prominent circular design feature were a custom-designed round banquette seat of bright pink velvet, which was complemented from above by a dramatic circular ceiling treatment of bunched and swathed silk fabric and a playful jewelry-like chandelier of gold metal filigree and faceted glass trinkets that hung from the center. Flanked on two sides of this main axis were jewelry displays that had been painstakingly refurbished with new trim and custom mirrored glass with harlequin pattern engravings. Cuts in the concrete slab to run electric wiring were strategically planned in a radiating pattern and then inlaid with small glass cobble tiles to further strengthen this central focal point. Terminating this primary axis was the store cash wrap and wall painted in the store’s brand, a bold and brightly colored harlequin pattern, which was prominently visible from outside the store.

All aspects of construction, including the highly detailed refurbishing of the jewelry cases and construction of the pink velvet banquette, were closely monitored by Burwell Associates to ensure that these crucial design details were executed properly. The end result was a solution that effectively blended the new store design with the jewelry company’s brand for a complete and enjoyable shopping experience. In 2010, Destin Jewelers was named America’s Coolest Store by the readers of INSTORE magazine, crowned the best out of over a hundred entries.