Walk into Bloomingdale’s at Aventura Mall and the first thing that pulls you forward isn’t a product display. It’s the ceiling.
Hundreds of hand-blown Bohemian glass components — in amber, blue, crystal, and accents of red — hang in a wave-like cascade above the main aisle of the Cosmetics and Fragrances department. Lit from above by new downlights, the installation does what every great piece of retail design should do: it gives shoppers a reason to keep walking. From the mall entrance, the eye lifts, the line of sight extends, and the journey through the store begins before anyone has touched a product.
That ceiling is the signature moment of a 39,000 square foot renovation our team completed in collaboration with the Bloomingdale’s Design Team — a project that reimagined the entire first-floor center core of one of South Florida’s most iconic department stores.
The Brief: Reset the Center Core
The center core is the heart of any department store. At Aventura, it included Cosmetics and Fragrances, Fine and Fashion Jewelry, Sunglasses, Handbags, and Women’s Shoes — the highest-traffic, highest-stakes real estate on the floor.
Bloomingdale’s wanted more than a refresh. They wanted a center core that opened up, breathed, and gave shoppers a reason to move deeper into the store. The brief came down to one question we ask on every retail project: how do we put the customer experience first?
Opening Up the Sightlines
One of the earliest design decisions had the biggest impact on how the renovated floor feels today. Before the renovation, full-height wall elements broke up the space and blocked sightlines from the mall entrance into the departments beyond Cosmetics and Fragrances. Shoppers couldn’t see what was waiting for them. Without a visual cue, there’s no pull.
Our team removed those barriers and replaced them with consistent, sleek architectural elements that frame each vendor space without walling it off. The result is a floor that reads as one continuous experience instead of a series of disconnected rooms — and a mall entrance that telegraphs the full retail journey at a glance.
Designing for Place
The other defining decision was thematic. Aventura isn’t anywhere — it’s South Florida. The neighborhood has its own visual language, and the renovation needed to honor that without abandoning Bloomingdale’s iconic identity.
The design draws from two distinctly South Florida references: the saturated color palette of South Beach, and the geometric refinement of Art Deco architecture. Soft gold metal runs through the perimeter fixturing and loose fixtures, brightening the spaces and adding a finish of finesse. Coral and blue accents appear in fabrics and special materials — vivid, but disciplined. Ocean-inspired custom artwork ties the surrounding architecture together.
The Art Deco influence is most visible in the columns that line the store’s two main aisles. Detailed with motifs that nod to the era, they form what we like to call a glamorous colonnade — a piece of structural choreography that gives the floor its rhythm.
The renovation reflects where it lives, while staying unmistakably Bloomingdale’s. That balance — local identity inside a national brand — is one of the most rewarding problems in retail interior design.
Department-by-Department Strategy
Every department in the center core got a customer-experience reset:
- Fine Jewelry gained a dedicated consultation area and open circulation around the caseline, replacing the formal-and-fenced feel that often defines jewelry spaces with something more welcoming.
- Women’s Shoes received seating opportunities distributed across the department, so shoppers can actually try on without competing for space. The perimeter fixturing was designed to balance a refined aesthetic with the realities of inventory capacity — a quiet but critical detail in any shoe department.
- A centralized clearance room was tucked behind a stunning frosted glass wall, with customer service desks staged in front. Clearance is a high-traffic, high-volume function, and giving it its own intentional architecture — rather than letting it sprawl across the floor — preserves the elevated feel of the rest of the department.
Each of these moves answers the same brief: prioritize the shopper’s experience without compromising the brand or the bottom line.
The Hand-Blown Ceiling
Back to where this post started. The lit ceiling element above the Cosmetics and Fragrances main aisle isn’t decoration. It’s a navigation device.
When customers step in from the mall, the eye is drawn upward and forward. The wave of glass — a deliberate reference to the ocean a few miles east — pulls them down the aisle and toward the back of the store. It’s the kind of installation that photographs beautifully and works hard at the same time, which is exactly what hospitality-grade retail design should do.
Hundreds of individual hand-blown components. Custom ceiling drops. Coordinated downlights. It’s the kind of detail that only comes together with serious fabrication coordination — one of the services our firm provides on every project at this scale.
A Collaborative Project
This renovation reflects a long-standing creative relationship with Bloomingdale’s, and a process built on close collaboration with their in-house design team. Our scope spanned interior design, space planning, fixture design, furniture selection, lighting design, fabrication coordination, construction documentation, and construction administration — the full arc from concept to opening day.
The result is a floor that does what a great retail environment should do: it makes the customer want to stay a little longer, look a little closer, and come back next weekend.
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If you’re planning a retail renovation — a single flagship or a national rollout — our team would be glad to explore how we can help.
📧 info@echeverriadesign.com 📞 305.444.0505
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