Coffee & Culture

Back in 2014 when Ralph Lauren opened its first ever coffee shop, Ralph’s Coffee, on New York’s Fifth Avenue, the logic was clear. A coffee shop gets customers to hang around for longer as they continue to interact with the brand; it gets customers spending money, and they might go back and buy that shirt they were umming and ahhing about. Plus, coffee is an affordable way to access a designer brand at a lower price point.

Then there’s social media. People tend to take out their phones and share the novelty of a Ralph Lauren coffee cup. As a trend, branded coffee concepts have been bubbling away in the background for some time but it was the pandemic that pushed them to boiling point.

In 2021, Fendi opened a café in Selfridges department store in London, complete with F-shaped ice cubes and monogrammed menus. To close out 2022, Spotify started serving up “wrappucinos” at their Spotify Wrapped Café in Paris. And in 2023, Prada Café opened in Harrods. As trendy branded coffee concepts get more popular, here’s some of the best examples worth keeping an eye on.

Caffè Rimowa in Milan

When the world’s most recognizable designer luggage company, Rimowa, collaborated with the cultish coffee machine manufacturer La Marzocco sparks were always going to fly. The result was Caffé Rimowa, a pop-up coffee spot at this year’s Milan Design Week that looked as much a fixture of the city as the Duomo di Milano.

Everything from the uniforms to the cups, napkins and signage had been considered and designed by two local creative agencies, Nuova and Studio Temp. But like Cinderella’s magic wearing off at midnight, once Milan Design Week was over the spellbinding Caffé Rimowa was gone.

Gucci takeover Monocle café in London

To mark the collaboration between Gucci and Monocle on an exclusive London guidebook, the Italian fashion house took over Monocle Café for a month in May. Gucci weaved in aspects of their historic brand into the pop-up.

Gucci’s founder, Guccio Gucci, worked as a bellboy in the Savoy Hotel in London during the 1920s and took inspiration from the hotel’s red lift for the luxury suitcases he started designing when he went back to Florence. As such the cups and the café’s awning took on the brand’s iconic Ancora Rosso color.

Only NY x Blank Street Coffee in New York

New York City’s streetwear favorite, Only NY, is known for its collaborations with some of the Big Apple’s most quintessential institutions like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and the city’s Parks Department. So when fellow NYC native, Blank Street Coffee, came knocking the match made total sense.

“We bonded with Only NY over our shared inspiration – the daily rituals of New York City,” as Blank Street’s co-founder Vinay Menda told Hypebae at the time. What followed was a marriage of sorts with Only NY designing the packaging for a bag of Nicaraguan coffee beans sourced by Blank Street.

Zara Coffee in Athens

To celebrate (and draw customers into) its new store in Athens, apparel brand Zara opened its own Greek café. For two days the Spanish retailer transformed a tiny space close to the seafront into a Greek paradise serving coffee and koulouri – a traditional sesame-covered bread ring often paired with coffee.

The design, by the creative agency Wozere Studio, paid homage to the colors of the national flag, encouraging a connection between the brand and its newfound home. The pop-up went down so well that Zara entrusted Wozere with the reins for a gelateria in Milan, pastelaria in Lisbon and cafés across the globe including a permanent fixture in Dubai.

Louis Vuitton Café in an airport

At this stage, for a major retailer like Louis Vuitton to open a store in an airport is barely newsworthy. With a presence in over 450 stores around the world, it has to do something novel to turn heads.

So when the 170-year-old trunk maker opened a café last month – or ‘Le Café’ as they call it – ears pricked up. After a slew of culinary openings in Osaka, Paris, Doha, and Tuscany, here was Louis Vuitton’s first ever dedicated coffee concept in London: a Louis Vuitton café in Heathrow airport.

Get roasting!

It’s worth mentioning that many people want to own Louis Vuitton or Gucci’s inventions because they are an indulgence, albeit an expensive one, that make you feel luxurious. The same can be said for coffee. Buying a coffee in a café is an indulgent ritual, a personal treat that makes you feel luxurious. As human beings' we have a particular weakness for self-indulgence. So, for retail brands of any size that are yet to tap into this, it is time to wake up and smell the coffee.

So what are you waiting for? Take your café to the next level with customizable, sustainable packaging and check out our coffee and café collection here. Get roasting!