Imagine if light could bridge the gap between who we are and who we aspire to be.

Fitting rooms are where retail gets real personal. The one place in a store where you're not just judging a product; you're judging yourself.

My master thesis investigated the fitting room as one of the most important rooms in a store, not the most overlooked one. Its power is twofold: interpersonal, in the private judgement a customer makes of their own reflection, and commercial, in that it's where the decision to buy or not is made. And yet most fitting rooms are lit like an afterthought - a curtain, a mirror, and a single overhead light source.

Our proposal was a three-component lighting system - a diffused overhead layer, a soft LED halo around the mirror, and gentle wall-wash. It calls for no construction - in most existing fitting rooms, it's a case of changing directions and layering fixtures that are already there, not renovating the room.

Not one ideal fitting room, but a framework that is centered around, and with care for, the psychological effects fitting rooms has on us.