Snapshot: Design firm Burdifilek remodels a building interior to house the flagship store of Toronto’s Holt Renfrew. A collaboration of two companies, each of which showcases a refined sense of customization and luxury, giving a mutual nod to each other with this new store.

In Burdifilek’s remodel and redesign of the interior space that now houses Holt Renfrew’s flagship Toronoto department store, a 16,160 square foot area complete with a designer floor, couture room, men’s lounge, and personal shopping area, is furnished with snowy palettes, alabaster textures, lucite tabletops, UV coating, white lacquered tables, and more, making it easy to assume that the real luxury on display is the furnishings, not the clothing.

Burdifilek truly connects with Holt Renfrew’s all-custom work and guides itself with the overarching maxim of making its clients look good, allowing the team freedom to make a much bolder statement in this remodel for Holt Renfrew. The designer floor is the centerpiece, a circular formation of opulent, globular modules demarcated by white light halos in the ceiling above, as well as thin hanging partitions that glisten in the reflected light, while white lacquer and aubergine-stained ash tables intersperse the large room, and are as sure to capture client’s attention as are the custom luxury brands hanging from the lines.

If the designer floor is the locus of opulence the personal shopping area is the same for customer service, conveying warmth and the promise of smiles and relaxation as clients are greeted by a team of stylists who turn their attention to available luxury items. This area was created with the appeal--even the capability--of a room’s environment at atmosphere in mind, with lighting, climate, and music, under total control, allowing for the imitation of any atmosphere as the occasion calls for it, which goes back to the mentality of customization that both Burdifilek and Holt Renfrew are well-known for.

Custom also implies differentiation, which here takes the form of the comparatively avant-garde couture area, where circular schema are replaced by the more traditional rectangular, as for the alignment twixt the overhead lighting and the carpet, while the interstitial geometrics between high and low are played with. On the designer floor those white lacquered tabletops rest upon traditional black lacquered pedestals but in the couture room, the tables pedestals are switched to quarter-cut gold-leafed ash wood bases, which in turn support lucite acrylic tabletops with mirror UV coating. This lies in between two tetroid arrangements of white or translucent glass cubes of varying sizes, widths, and lengths, each of which taken together form kaleidoscopic walls. Underneath all of this, the carpet is pink--not hot pink, not bubblegum, just the dark, deep, almost opalescent tone permeating the rest of the interior.

As it approaches its twenty second birthday, Burdifilek does justice to its well-earned reputation. It’s only an initial look that gives the notion Burdifilek are stealing the show from newcomers Holt Renfrew: for the opulent customized refinement of both houses, Burdifilek and Holt Renfrew, simply shows that for this remodeling project, the two are a match made in heaven.

Photography courtesy of Holt Renfrew