Designed by CuldeSac Custom Retail, Legit is a 105 sqm sneaker store in Valencia built around the idea of a collector’s home becoming a place to display an obsession. Sneakers are treated as collectable pieces rather than conventional merchandise, and this approach determines how products, furniture and circulation are organised throughout the interior.
The project responds to the need to present a more exclusive selection of footwear while establishing an identity clearly differentiated from that of a traditional shoe shop. The domestic references are therefore not simply decorative: they provide the framework for a retail environment where displaying, discovering and collecting sneakers become part of the same experience.
A sneaker collection defines the retail concept
Legit is conceived as the home of a sneaker collector whose passion has gradually taken over the space. Different areas resemble fragments of a domestic environment, but familiar objects acquire a new purpose as supports for displaying footwear.
This changes the hierarchy between product and setting. Individual sneakers are presented as pieces of a collection, while the objects surrounding them reinforce the idea of a personal environment shaped by the collector’s interests.
The result sits between a shop, a home and an exhibition space, using the collector’s imaginary as a practical framework for product presentation rather than simply as a visual theme.
Refined displays contrast with the raw interior
A deliberate contrast separates the display elements from the existing envelope. More refined materials and carefully detailed supports are placed against surfaces that retain a rougher, unfinished appearance.
This contrast reinforces the status assigned to the footwear. The architectural background remains deliberately imperfect, while the elements supporting and framing the sneakers give individual products greater visual prominence.
Instead of covering the existing character of the space with a uniform fit-out, the project uses the difference between raw and refined elements to establish a clear hierarchy between background and merchandise.
Lighting helps define the circulation
Lighting contributes directly to the organisation of the store. Light integrated into the floor traces the distribution of the interior and helps make the route through the space legible.
An existing partition is opened to facilitate circulation and maintain visual connections across the store. Additional openings frame selected sneakers while allowing the collection to remain visible through the architectural element.
Light therefore performs more than an atmospheric role: together with the modified partition, it contributes to circulation, product visibility and the spatial sequence experienced by customers.
Domestic objects become retail displays
One of the project’s most transferable ideas is the use of familiar objects as part of the display system. Their original domestic associations remain recognisable, but their function changes once they are used to support, frame or highlight individual sneakers.
This approach allows the interior to communicate the collector’s story without relying on conventional rows of shelving. Display furniture and found objects work together, giving different products their own position within an apparently informal composition.
“Legit is the result of a personality full of sensibility. The contrast of a person who can live in a perfect chaos because there is nothing that matters to him more than his obsession: sneakers; treated with the delicacy of collectable pieces.”
Lucía del Portillo, Partner & Creative Director at CuldeSac Custom
Behind this apparent disorder is therefore a precise display strategy: the environment establishes a narrative around the collection while ensuring that individual products remain identifiable and visually prominent.
Project: Legit, the Temple of the Sneaker Culture
Designer: CuldeSac Custom Retail
Location: Valencia, Spain
Area: 105 sqm
Photo credit: Hello Bien Studio
by AN Shopfitting Magazine n.145 ©