Home Away from Home? Staged Domesticity in the Retail Interior

In retail design, the strategy of evoking domestic familiarity supports global brands to create spaces that induce the comfort and identity-affirming qualities conventionally associated with the home. This paper explores how global brands, through evoking domestic familiarity in localised retail design, engage in a nuanced process of staged inhabitation reinforcing local culture, while mirroring the protective elements of domesticity within commercial space and blending these with global brand identities. By drawing from the local neighbourhood, architectural language, the community’s shared history, and nostalgic elements of home, retail designers embed interiors with community-specific perceptions of home, provoking place attachment (Khan, c. 2025). Taking an experience-driven approach, the home is evoked through multi-sensory elements, shared rituals reminiscent of domestic life, and the curation of furnishing and possessions. These conjure a “lived in” and personalised atmosphere within a globalised commercial context. However, the blending of global brand identity with local domestic elements brings with it ethical complexities. When global brands borrow from local domestic languages and rituals, questions of authenticity and agency arise: Does this enmeshment serve to reinforce a sense of belonging, or does it threaten the integrity of local living by subsuming this within a globalised and commercial authority? The study considers whether global branded retail spaces, by evoking domestic familiarity, act as a supportive extension of local culture or place the domestic sphere under siege by commodifying intimate aspects of local living. It prompts essential questions: To what extent does this uncanny representation of “domesticity” in the commercial space genuinely serve inhabitants, and when might its role in commodification transgress the personal and authentic meaning imbued in the sacred home?