‘Urban Island’ concept store for ‘designed & made in Sri Lanka’ fashion and homeware opens at Col. 7

From left: AOD Colombo Creative Director Karen MacLod, AOD Colombo Founder Linda Speldewinde, Mrs. World 2018 Alice Lee Gionetta and Mayor Rosie Senanayake

Colombo Mayor Rosy Senanayake on Monday unveiled the flagship store for ‘designed & made in Sri Lanka’ designer lifestyle product brand ‘Urban Island’. 

This new and unique concept store is located in Colombo 7 and presents a new take on the tropical modern lifestyle of Sri Lanka through a tastefully curated collection of homeware, gifts, sarees and handpicked season-less designer wear, that have been locally designed and made. Urban Island’s mantra ‘contemporary tropical travel stories’ is encapsulated in every yard of fabric, every piece and product that connect back to the sensitivities and modern aesthetics of Sri Lanka’s people, geographies, cultures and histories. This unusual store is now open as one of the best modern representations of Sri Lanka’s metropolitan island culture, offering travellers, visitors and local purchasers a unique and creatively rich curation of designer items connected to the island.

Urban Island is a brand that holds contemporary design at its core. Working with a mix of local and international designers, plus traditional artisans in Sri Lanka, Urban Island lends the heritage crafts in the country a modern global view. This practice is rooted in sustainable design, season-less looks, conscious living and a signature aesthetic that is unique to Sri Lanka’s modern lifestyle. At the newly opened Urban Island flagship store, handpicked collections created with this new signature style are presented within a charming mid-century Colombo bungalow turned gallery store. It’s a space where you discover a stunning curation of beautiful, functional products that tell a story and make the everyday a little less ordinary.

Spread over 6,000 square feet of meticulous curation, Urban Island presents fashion and lifestyle products designed, made, and most often handcrafted in Sri Lanka. Sarees that double as a takeaway of six yards in exquisite handwork, modern accessories using traditional techniques, visual interpretations that derive from Sri Lanka’s modern metropolitan cool, season-less western wear that work from Colombo, Copenhagen to New York, designer homeware, lighting, ceramic art to unusual gift items are the treasures that make up the Urban Island store experience. 

These are often Urban Island’s own resident collections, while thoughtfully sourced products from partner brands like JAF tea, Aqua Island, Greenfield and Allure, also add to the collection, completing this curation of travel stories. Urban Island takes forward ideas of affordable luxury, and transparent origins that connect deeply to human creativity and cultures. This is why Urban Island store collections carry an unmistakable magic found only in varied, exciting, original products designed with an attention to detail and levels of care that would never be achievable in mass production. Urban Island is where you will discover the travel stories that you want to carry back home—the kind that embraces sustainability, season-less style and a conscious way of living.

‘Urban Island’ was declared open this October as part of ‘Innovation Island’ campaign for Sri Lanka. AOD Colombo Founder Linda Speldewinde, who is behind this new venture said, “The concept store experience we are bringing with ‘Urban Island’ completes the design-led eco system we are pushing out of Sri Lanka with designed and made in Sri Lanka.”

The Urban Island Flagship Store is now open at 181, Dharmapala Mawatha, Colombo 7 (10 a.m. to 7 p.m.), while a special outlet is also open at Shangri La, Hambantota. Urban Island will also launch a pop-up store in Kandy from 11 October to 31 December for the season. For inquiries and more information reach [email protected]/0117021377 and follow the Urban Island Story on facebook.com/urbanislanddesign and instgram.com/urbanislanddesign.