This is one of the reasons I have been so bad about posting…the Level Shoe District at Dubai Mall – a dedicated area within Dubai Mall dedicated to the glory of designer shoes….these shoes are not just something you wear but are works of art….they deserve an entire area devoted just to them!!
My team and I have been painting the fins which are installed above the shop fronts..you can see them in the image above . We painted about 2300 individual fins and about 2700 pieces of MDF which were installed in between each fin to make a neat finish. They were all colour washed in very soft tones of grey which looks amazing with the overall colour scheme of oyster grey, gold and soft shell pink.
This is a view of the fins and the in-fills close up.
A view down one side of the Shoe District with Loius Vuitton on the left and Gucci, Chanel and Dior on the right…these stores are now all open of course..this image was taken while we were still on site.
This is the other big project which has been dominating my time…a hand painted wallpaper installed onto vaulted domes at a 5 Star hotel here in Dubai.
This wallpaper has been gold leafed with a hand painted design stenciled on top of the leaf….the cornice was also gold leafed and then sealed with a tinted varnish to knock back the colour and tone it down a little.
It has been a really challenging project with a lot of work done off site and then installed on site once the air conditioning had been commissioned. While I am pleased that we have finally completed the job, I am not very happy with the result as I feel the lighting does not enhance the gold leaf as I had hoped it would…..in fact, as you can see from the above image, there are dark patches which are very obvious in situ and the gold leaf appears almost dull. I think it may have been an oversight by the designer, but I guess it’s not up to me to sort out!
Work in progress ….the 7m high scaffold which I climbed up a few times with very sweaty hands!!
These two projects are now complete, aside from a few snags here and there, and I am very pleased to be starting a new year with a clean slate as one would say!
A Decorator's Notebook 