Darker Luminaires, Brighter Merchandise

As optic technology is evolving, fashion retail lighting is moving from uniform to high contrast lighting, characterised by dark light, narrow beams and miniaturisation. Ledil examines which optic technology suits what lighting setup.

To be competitive, brick and mortar stores need to deliver more than products, they need to create superior customer experiences. One way to create experiences and brand awareness is through lighting. Studies show that successfully executed lighting makes us feel comfortable and increases the time and money that we spend in a store, as well as the likelihood of us returning to it. Investing in good lighting is therefore a no-brainer.

One way to differentiate is to play with ambient and accent light to create low or high contrast lighting concepts, depending on what suits the brand and its customers. But it’s not always clear what technical solution to choose for the desired effect.

Low contrast fashion retail lighting with spotlight reflectors and linear extrusion optics.

Historically, reflectors have been the main choice in fashion retail lighting, but as technology keeps evolving, lenses are becoming more and more popular, and both solutions have their time and place.

The traditional approach to creating low contrast lighting setups has been to use many spot track lights with reflectors to highlight product displays, and panels with diffusers to create softer ambient light. This setup increases the lighting levels on the product, but also increases the amount of ambient light on the floor. Sleek diffuser panels can be quite bright and cause glare, but work well enough in brighter rooms with a lot of ambient light and lighter colours.

Spotlights with reflectors only have one reflective surface to control the beam, leaving a big portion of the light without any optical control. This “uncontrolled light” can be used for creating ambient light, but not for creating high contrast lighting. Lenses, on the other hand, offer full control since every single beam touch at least one surface of the lens.

High contrast lighting setups demand more finesse and control of the luminaires; dark light luminaires with lenses are often the best option to achieve this. As a customer’s attention is naturally drawn to the brightest light source in the room, this may end up being the luminaire itself, rather than what is being illuminated. Unless this is a well-planned decorative effect with lower light output, it can be distracting and ruin the visual hierarchy. Secondly, when a high contrast lighting setup is done well, without unwanted ambient light spilled around the merchandise, the products can really glow and stand out from the background. Honeycomb accessories and extra shades can provide more control for luminaires with reflectors, but only luminaires with lenses can do this while maintaining the same efficiency.

In general, reflectors work well in low contrast lighting setups, but lenses are a better choice for achieving high contrasts. The actual brightness of the luminaire is not as important in a low contrast environment. However, for high contrast lighting to work effectively, luminaires need to go dark and the beams narrow in order to concentrate light on the merchandise, where it should be.

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