Barbour
AW25: The Original & Authentic Barbour Tartans
We developed a tiered spatial design concept for launching Barbour’s 2025 Brand Moment: The Original & Authentic Barbour Tartans.
Designed for partner pop-up executions, the concept tells the tartan story and captures Barbour’s heritage while giving it a contemporary edge.
Entitled Ode to Ayrshire, the project returns to the birthplace of the Barbour name and the roots of its family tartan. Each space celebrates the landscapes, materials and people that shaped the brand, pairing the authenticity of the past with designs made for today.
At its heart sits an architectural grid system that transforms Barbour’s traditional tartan sett into a three-dimensional display framework for retail environments and brand activations. The structure becomes a physical expression of Barbour’s identity, allowing customers to step inside the brand’s fabric and experience it up close.
Our approach began with sketches exploring how Barbour’s iconic tartan sett could be translated into space. These early studies mapped the warp and weft of the pattern into an architectural rhythm, creating a walkable structure that moves between craft and experience.
Woven Pathways became the framework for that idea, a modular system that can scale and adapt, transforming a two-dimensional textile into an inhabitable, three-dimensional environment. Each component, from the grid intersections to the materials and lighting, reflects Barbour’s balance of authenticity and modern craftsmanship.
The Gold executions cover a large footprint and feature a central sett structure with two large tartan rolls suspended over its roof. We included a large 3D Barbour logo installation as a central element of the space, surrounded by planting that was native to Ayrshire. Inside this structure, the storytelling table brings the campaign narrative to life, whilst shoppable products are displayed across rails and tables.
Another area of the space is dedicated to customisation, where consumers can discover more about the products and get the chance to personalise them in this unique environment. The gold executions offer as well a photo moment where people can get a picture in front of a typical Ayrshire backdrop and a gallery dedicated to showcase campaign photography next to large rolls of the different tartan variations for people to touch and see up-close.
The whole space is immersed in the tartan, everything from the armchairs to a Land Rover are wrapped in the iconic pattern, becoming sculptural centrepieces.
For department store pop-ups, the medium-scale design creates a contained yet open environment defined by the tartan grid. Campaign photography, fabric rolls and products occupy the framework, maintaining the rhythm and clarity of the larger installations.
Visitors are drawn in by a large image of the Ayrshire landscape. Head-to-toe dressed mannequins rise from a tartan-sett platform surrounded by planting, while at the centre a storytelling table, inspired by a textile cutting bench reveals a layered display of photography, fabric samples and archival references. It’s a tactile and engaging presentation that ties Barbour’s craft to its place of origin.
The smallest tier carries the same design DNA through a more compact footprint. A three-dimensional floor grid made from interlocking wooden panels follows the tartan pattern, angled to create a dynamic surface for product display.
Installations at La Rinascente, Galeries Lafayette Passerelle and Osnabrück centered around immersive landscapes wrapped in Barbour tartan. Pop ups were designed to be structured yet open, with storytelling through texture and rhythm.
Across every tier, The Original & Authentic Barbour Tartans reimagines heritage through design. Woven Pathways turns the Barbour sett into both structure and story - contemporary in form, timeless in meaning.
Each installation is a living expression of Barbour’s DNA - crafted, natural and quietly bold.
This project reconnects Barbour to its roots in landscape and craftsmanship, showing how the brand’s most familiar pattern can still move, evolve and inspire.