Catch the installations before they rotate out; five women artists have brought vibrant works to COS stores in London, Paris and Helsinki, giving each address a fresh point of view.
COS has long folded culture into its retail mix; its latest collaboration feels purpose-made for the moment. The brand asked London interior practice Studio Ashby to plant artworks by five women across three European flagships, trusting each piece to play off local architecture and its own disciplined lines.
Studio founder Sophie Ashby approached the project like a curator, matching scale and materiality to each setting. Her roster features Finland’s Milla Vaahtera, South Africa’s Erin Chaplin, and Britons Dalia James, Anna Ilsley and Alice Neave; the mediums jump from glass to wool, oil and thread, yet a shared ease with colour ties them together.
Regent Street opens with Vaahtera’s hanging constellation of hand-blown glass and brass that softens the store’s sharp angles. In Paris, Neave’s stitched, pigment-washed canvases sit beside Chaplin’s studies in nature versus artifice, a quiet check on the white walls. Helsinki closes the loop with James’s geometric weave facing Ilsley’s candid portrait of motherhood, a pairing that Ashby calls the most personal.
The pieces stay in COS’s own art collection once the season ends, joining Paper Factor tables and Kasthall rugs that already punctuate its interiors. The takeaway is simple: a shopping trip can double as an art encounter.
