Mooli aesthetics: "I always listen to what I can leave out"

On a recent extended visit to London, S&M invited me into their daily lives and it was, I can confirm, what we all feared: that yes, all our professional pursuits are unlikely to compare to the exhilarating life of an entrepreneur almost moments away from seeing their ideas being realised. From Mr Yau's love of the beef to the long meeting and discussions on design, I enjoyed it all. The design and its evolution was very interesting, not least because, guided by S&M, I was able to see, feel, eat and capture what the current competition and the fast food market is about. How much should we speak? Should we plaster pictures everywhere? Is our design too simple? Is tab really sexy? To what extent should we sacrifice our design/aesthetic ideal for commercial reasons, if at all? These are difficult questions, because the impulse is to shout and scream about all the wonderful things in the store and so many brands seem to achieve success by constantly speaking to their consumers.


It struck me that against this strong impulse, which will pull again and again pre and post mooli's launch, it is important to have a counter-impulse, one which increasingly seems to represent the S&M vision: there is no need to scream or place pictures everywhere. We will let the customers do the screaming; our story will be there if they wish to look - it will be conveyed but not in a jarring way.

Perhaps the best description of this kind of impulse is be found in the words uttered by Miles Davis, which pithily also sums up his greatness: "I always listen to what I can leave out". Taking the conventional fast-food concept as a base, this is what S&M are doing.