While studying architecture and design at Harvard and Cornell, architect Rooshad Shroff remembers a moment that shifted how he saw retail spaces. “In 2001 [architectural firm] OMA, led by Rem Koolhaas, designed a Prada store in Soho. That was the defining moment, a shift in terms of how people conceive retail spaces. Before that, retail was more retail-focused with less emphasis on experiential or spatial planning of design. Even in architectural education we looked at the huge double-heighted store as this pivotal shift in retail design, almost like the Guggenheim Bilbao [in Spain] effect was with architecture for the city,” he says.

More than two decades later, Shroff is a part of how luxury retail continues to be imagined in Mumbai. He has designed the new 7,500 sq ft Rahul Mishra flagship store in Kala Ghoda, the 100,000 sq ft Nilaya Anthology store in Lower Parel — India’s largest décor and design space — and designed key areas of the Louis Vuitton flagship at Jio World Plaza. Shroff was also the local architect for Christian Louboutin’s Mumbai store and the lead design architect for their Bangkok store.