Charlotte Tilbury needed two centrepieces for its Sephora rollout: a round vanity table on a two-cone base, and a photo moment shaped like an oversized makeup mirror ringed in globe lights. Both in a shiny brass finish. Across multiple store locations, not one.
Park Creative Studio brought us the brief. shōmi! Custom built both pieces to spec, on budget, and durable enough to survive a retail floor. Here’s the custom retail display fabrication that made it happen.
The Brief
For Charlotte Tilbury’s Sephora footprint, that meant two centrepieces:
- A round vanity table, base built from two inverted cones, topped with a custom tray drilled for security tethers to hold perfume bottles in place.
- An Instagram photo moment built to resemble a massive makeup mirror ringed in globe lights.
Same finish on both: a shiny, warm brass. Same requirement on both: hold up across multiple stores, not just look good on install day.
The Engineering Challenges
Three problems, one project.
Get the brass look on budget. A two-cone table base is a lot of panels to keep consistent under one finish, and that has to happen across multiple locations, not once.
Build the base so it’s actually structurally sound, with a tray that keeps perfume bottles secured while customers can still pick them up and try them.
Build the mirror-and-globe-light photo moment so it’s durable and safe on a retail floor that gets bumped and leaned on daily, not just durable on install day.
The Build
The finish. A pressure-sensitive metallic vinyl film, hand-applied and squeegeed carefully to avoid scuffing, delivered the brass look without plated metal parts.
The table. Two inverted cones instead of one moulded form kept the base buildable and stable while still delivering the sculptural look the brief called for. The tray on top was drilled with holes sized for security tethers, so perfume bottles could sit out for customers to try while staying secured to the fixture.
The photo moment. Instead of traditional light bulbs, the globe lights were built as vacuum-formed half domes of white translucent acrylic, set into a metal frame. The domes were engineered for durability and resistance to wear, creating a sturdy, break-resistant mirror effect without a bulb to replace or a socket to wire.
What Shipped
- Budget: the brass finish, achieved with vinyl film rather than plated metal.
- Structure and security: the two-cone table base and tethered tray, holding perfume bottles securely while staying fully accessible to customers.
- Durability and safety: the makeup-mirror photo moment, built with acrylic domes in a metal frame engineered for wear and resistance to breakage, in place of exposed light bulbs.
The Real Lesson
A brass finish and a lit mirror moment don’t need plated metal or wired glass to read right at retail scale. They need the material and method that hits the look, the budget, and the durability bar the floor actually demands.
On this one, that was vinyl film and vacuum-formed acrylic. On the next one, it’ll be whatever the brief and the budget call for.
