A Window Into the Store of the Future
Courtesy of Graanmarkt 13
ILSE CORNELISSENS
A Window Into the Store of the Future
By Bonnie Langedijk
To simply describe Graanmarkt 13 as a store wouldn’t do it justice. The townhouse, situated on a cobblestone square in the city center of Antwerp, houses a curated edit of fashion, beauty and interior pieces, a restaurant and a luxury apartment with hotel service. Founder Ilse Cornelissens, who launched the concept store with her husband Tim van Geloven, was inspired by Colette, which she came across while studying in Paris. The couple wanted to bring different creative fields together. Offering a slower lifestyle concept by working with the best across industries and taking a more conscious approach to fashion, food and design. Renowned architect Vincent van Duysen designed the townhouse, resulting in a space that feels minimal yet warm. The store stocks brands that fit with Cornelissens’ and van Geloven’s philosophy, including Swedish jewelry brand All Blues, Danish design and beauty brand FRAMA and fashion and furniture brand KASSL Editions (which Cornelissens also co-founded). The restaurant follows a no-waste concept and chefs harvest locally sourced ingredients, garden herbs and honey from Graanmarkt’s rooftop into healthy dishes. And the apartment, once you visit you’ll just want to move in.
For many, shopping online has become the standard. In the UK online retail sales grew to 37.8 percent of total sales in 2021, compared to only 21.8 percent in 2019. And we can’t deny online shopping is efficient, but it can leave consumers feeling unsatisfied. When it comes to physical retail, we’re in search of memorable experiences over transactional interactions. We want our purchases to mean something. Graanmarkt 13 has managed to develop a 360 approach, with an offering that seamlessly connects fashion with beauty, design and food in a home-like setting. We caught up with Graanmarkt 13 founder Ilse Cornelissens and discussed curation, the speed of the fashion industry and the future of retail.
Courtesy of Graanmarkt 13
Courtesy of Graanmarkt 13
Bonnie: Let’s start at the beginning. How did you end up founding Graanmarkt13?
Ilse: I was my grandmother’s only grandchild, and she was an entrepreneur. She fell in love with a ski instructor in Austria, brought him back to Belgium with her and built him a ski slope. The concept of dry ski slopes didn’t exist in Europe back then. It’s really because of her and the inheritance she left me that I was able to start something completely out of the box after university. I studied in Paris for a while, and during that time Colette was taking off. Tim [Ilse’s husband and business partner] and I wondered whether there was room in Amsterdam for something that brings all these different fields together, and we could run it. We kept playing with the idea, and after finishing university just decided to go with it. But even back then, real estate and permits were difficult to navigate in Amsterdam. We already owned an apartment in Antwerp and since I had roots there, we impulsively decided to try there instead. Initially we were looking for something small: a store with maybe a coffee corner. But we stumbled upon Graanmarkt and couldn’t resist. We bought the building, which was completely dilapidated and had been empty for 10 years. From there we started looking for an architect. Vincent van Duysen was Tim’s mom’s favorite architect, and that's how we ended up working with him. To be very honest, at that time I didn’t really know anything about good architects, because we weren’t part of that world as much as we maybe are now.
That’s a lucky coincidence. What was it like to work with him?
Ilse: It was fantastic. I always say, every chef has a teacher and he was ours. We worked with him for nearly three years. He’s taught us things that we’ll take with us forever. We’re currently in the process of moving into a new house, and in our new home the light switches are pretty high on the wall. He taught us that they should always be low, 90 centimeters [from the ground]. It’s the little details that make the difference. We apply what we learned from Vincent to everything whether it’s fashion or food.
“Vincent van Duysen was Tim’s mom’s favorite ARCHITECT, and that's how we ended up working with him. To be very honest, at that time I didn’t really know anything about good architects, because we weren’t part of that world as much as we maybe are now.”
It’s funny that you landed on Vincent by chance, because when you look at your philosophy for Graanmarkt 13 it’s such a good fit.
Ilse: Definitely. He created a box for us within which we could do our own thing. In the meantime the store is more packed than it used to be. Sometimes I still think “Oh no, what if Vincent comes in? He’ll go mad. And for example Gert Voorjans often drops by with other people and he’ll explain the full story. He always says: “It’s so nice. You design that corner in a way that Vincent would never do.” He likes that we buy into things that don’t really belong in that same aesthetical world.
Completely, that’s how you inject some personality into it too. Speaking about aesthetics, I would love to talk about curation. In the world we live in, many are in search of filters whether that’s a publication, a person or even a store. What’s your approach to deciding what makes sense for Graanmarkt?
Ilse: A lot of what’s happening now, used to happen on a smaller scale. Back in the day people went to the store in town. They trusted the owner who traveled to Milan to buy a few new pieces, and they wanted to dress like the store owner. The people we follow on Instagram have now taken that place. You have to really learn to filter who you follow and what you read, otherwise you go crazy. And some are better at it than others. I think it’s our role to be the filter. We're a fairly curated, slow concept, and at Graanmarkt we want to help people to make the right choices. From our personal perspective, we always look for things that are small, good and close to the source. And therefore are a bit more us than the masses. The question is how long brands can keep up with being so niche and small.
Courtesy of Graanmarkt 13
Courtesy of Graanmarkt 13
So the product has to fit in with the Graanmarkt philosophy, but you also look at what the brand and the people behind it represent?
Ilse: Definitely. We’ve built meaningful relationships with most of the people we work with. Lyn Harris from Perfumer H in London is a good friend for example. We worked with them pretty intensively as they developed the Graanmarkt13 perfume. And whether it’s through Graanmarkt or KASSL, I really appreciate all the people we’ve met on the way and all the remarkable stories behind those interactions. Things really changed for us five years ago, when we decided to move away from discounting and sales. Before that we had become this buying machine. Most of the brands we stock now are on the smaller side. It’s brought us closer to the brands we work with.
How did the shift away from the traditional fashion calendar impact your relationship with brands and consumers?
Ilse: It was challenging and exciting at the same time. It was always more interesting than continuing down the same path. We felt that within fashion there’s a lot of talk but little action. You’re pushed into so many things. Commercially, we kind of grew into half an Isabel Marant store. We let the commercial side drive us, and we didn’t stay true to what we initially set out to do. Once we made the change, it was so great to bring back the brands that truly fit our philosophy.
Completely. The current fashion cycle doesn’t really work for anyone: the stores, the brands and the consumer.
Ilse: Exactly, everyone in the chain feels dissatisfied or cheated somehow. Consumers feel cheated when they’ve paid 100 euros for a product, and the next day the price has dropped to 80 or 60 euros. With stores the margins are a big and complicated problem, and you feel cheated when you’re comparing with competitors. And as a brand, you’re designing something, but for what? To devalue it straight away. There’s nothing satisfying about that. That’s why we changed the way we work. Surprisingly, consumers accept it. Look, we’re selling fashion so there might be pieces that are on sale somewhere else while we’re selling it full price. And I always say: “Go and buy it on sale.” But if you really love something and you want a specific color and size, good luck finding it discounted. If you like it, you buy it and we attach a value to it that we believe in and one that we think it should always have. The buying process can be challenging. We used to be able to be a loyal account, with a similar budget every season. Now we consider what we still have in stock, and we might skip a season here and there.
The apartment, designed by Vincent van Duysen. Courtesy of Graanmarkt 13
Not only the fashion cycle but also the overall retail industry is in need of an overhaul. What are your thoughts on the future of retail?
Ilse: I think the growth in online shopping will continue. As we talked about in the beginning, the ability to get information and to develop your taste through online resources has really democratized the playing field. Additionally, once people start researching, they subsequently also buy online. I think physical retail should function as a curated window into what’s happening online. It’s less about product, and more about creating places where people are inspired to shop online. It’s about gathering people, and whether you can eat or drink in the space or you can shop effectively, doesn’t matter. At one point I think we won’t leave a store with a shopping bag anymore. You might still see, wear or try the product on physically in store, but it’s delivered to your house post-purchase. The purpose of retail is for people to still have a physical connection with the brand or product. To feel it, see it, smell it, but the purchasing part will move online.
I think you’re right. The retail experience has been so transactional. There aren’t that many stores where you leave feeling inspired. There’s a real opportunity to create spaces where different industries come together. A pop-up where a chef and a fashion brand come together for example.
Ilse: Yes, that’s something we’re really pushing with Graanmarkt. We now regularly empty the store out completely, and focus on just one brand. We’ll only have Extreme Cashmere for a few days for example. We can often only buy a few pieces, so we never get to showcase a brand’s full universe. While that’s the most existing part. I believe our role is to serve as a stage for brands to show who they are. It also shifts your relationship with the brands. A great example is Bernadette. I could never for the life of me sell a thousand floral dresses. But if we would solely show the world of Bernadette for two or three weeks. Only selling florals: floral dresses, floral vases, you can sell much more because you’re showing the full brand universe. But we did really think about whether we could pull it off. Our plan was to, for 12 months, give a different brand the spotlight every month. But it proved hard with the cycles of the fashion industry. Because everyone wants the February/March or September/October slot, but what about the other months? So for now, we still do it sporadically for shorter periods of time.
I love that. Because then it’s not just a floral dress on a hanger, you’re showing the product within its context which makes you understand and maybe appreciate it more.
Ilse: Exactly. You get it, and you feel it more.
You almost become a gallery for the brands you sell, and that connects to the curation piece we talked about earlier.
Ilse: For us, the interior part can always be this ongoing thing, but for fashion I really see us becoming more of a stage where we collaborate with brands.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.