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STORE DESIGN Retail’s Renaissance WITH AN EMPHASIS ON GREAT DESIGN, BRICK-AND- MORTAR SHOPPING MAKES A DAZZLING COMEBACK. BY MELISSA FELDMAN PHOTOGRAPH BY TED BELTON

HEN THE FASHION designer Carolina Herrera appointed Wes Gordon to be Wthe new steward of her eponymous label, it was inevitable that change would soon follow. In September, Gordon unveiled the newly remod- eled Herrera flagship on to much fanfare. To real- ize his grand vision, he brought in the Brazilian architect Andre Mellone and interior designer Chi- ara de Rege, who is known for cre- ating the Wing’s millennial-pink aesthetic. The result is a fresh and elegant space full of bold col- ors, lush fabrics—Jim Thompson silks, Claremont velvets, Samuel & Sons trim—and vivid patterns set against a white canvas. Mellone reconfigured the three-story pre- war building, moving the entrance off the avenue to 75th Street, which makes the store feel more like a grand residence. What better way Model Laura Love, wearing a ruffled Carolina to help shoppers, so used to buying Herrera gown from the fall 2019 collection, in the entry of the brand’s remodeled Madison Avenue online, feel at home? flagship, which was designed by Chiara de Rege

HAIR: YOICHI TOMIZAWA; HAIR: TOMIZAWA; YOICHI MAKEUP: YINNA WANG and architect Andre Mellone. carolina​herrera.com

PRODUCED BY CHARLES CURKIN ELLE DECOR 35 Designer Wes Gordon­ POINT OF VIEW with Love, who is wearing a silver The black-and-white limestone-­ ­Carolina Herrera tile floor is a nod to the brand’s gown from the fall signature polka-dot motif. 2019 ­collection, on the curving Venetian ­plaster staircase.

Womenswear and fragrances are displayed in a living room–like setting on the second floor.

The dramatic design of the Her- rera store is emblematic of a growing trend of luxury brands rethinking the retail experience with the help of top designers and architects. “People gen- uinely enjoy the shopping experience,” de Rege observes. “It’s the purchasing part of the equation that’s changed.” Testing that theory in Paris, Gal- Love wearing eries Lafayette (galerieslafayette a Carolina .com) last year opened its colossal Herrera shirt- dress from the new flagship on the Champs-Élysées. spring 2020 impulse to attract millennials with Housed in an Art Deco former bank, collection. minimalist aesthetics. For the label’s the 70,000-square-foot store was new outpost near Rome’s Spanish ­conceived by the visionary architect Steps, designer Eric Carlson chan- Bjarke Ingels. A monumental marble neled a 16th-century palazzo, but with entry draws in curious shoppers; glass a twist for the tech generation: The cubes installed above have become store’s digital frescoes depict azure popular Instagram backdrops. skies, angry Greco-Roman gods, and With a smaller footprint but com- adorable cherubim. The gilt interiors parable ambition, fashion designer are also replete with mosaics, sumptu- Gabriela Hearst (gabrielahearst ous furniture in scarlet velvet, golden .com) recently opened her first Euro- boutiques by year, from Shang- Murano glass chandeliers, and some 15 pean shop, in London’s Mayfair. She hai to Zurich. Has the French jewelry shades of marble. commissioned Pritzker Prize laureate giant been unaffected by the plight of Retail may have lost a few battles, ­Norman Foster, who incorporated a brick and mortar? Not at all, as Laura but if more brands follow in the foot- range of sustainable materials, includ- Gonzalez, the Parisian designer who steps of Gordon and de Rege at Caro- ing blond wood, leather, and marble, is designing them all, makes clear. lina Herrera, the war may still be won into the store’s design. Custom fur- “We’re living in a time when the inter- with help from striking interiors and niture sits atop herringbone parquet net is gaining more importance, and thoughtful design. The key to success, floors fabricated from wood reclaimed we have to give people a reason to go says de Rege, is encouraging people from a British military barrack. back to the stores,” she says. to stay, drink Champagne, and touch Meanwhile, Cartier (cartier.com) Unsurprisingly, Dolce & Gabbana the goods—it’s the best way to “under-

will be opening at least nine new (dolcegabbana.it) is resisting the stand the brand as an experience.” CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: TED BELTON (2); BJÖRN WALLANDER (2)

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Variety Stores Around the world, architects and designers are reinvigo- rating shop design. Here are 2 some of the latest to open. 1. Gabriela Hearst 3 The fashion designer’s new boutique in London’s Mayfair neighborhood was designed by architect Norman Foster. 2. Fendi Dimore Studio channeled a chic Roman 1970s vibe in Monte Carlo with mirrors, brass, and vintage furniture. 3. Galeries Lafayette 1 The Danish architect Bjarke Ingels designed a massive new shopping mecca on the 4 5 Champs-Élysées in Paris. 4. Dolce & Gabbana Understatement is nowhere in this irreverent new store in Rome’s Piazza di Spagna. 5. Cartier The storied French jewelry empire has recently opened multiple stores, including this one in Zurich.

My friend was crazy Cinematic Approach enough to hire me to FILMMAKER LUCA GUADAGNINO design his property on Lake Como. I was working HAS LAUNCHED HIS OWN DESIGN on my film Suspiria, and STUDIO. HERE, HE DISCUSSES HIS every time I left to visit the construction site, Luca Guadagnino. FIRST RETAIL PROJECT IN NEW YORK. even if it was mayhem, I You’ve directed films like motifs to the boiserie by felt happy and relieved. It Call Me By Your Name Nigel Peake. We lined made me want to be more and I Am Love. Now you’re all the walls in a custom involved in the design unveiling the design of white Dedar velvet. process. So that made me your first fashion project, My studio devised the think, Why not? a New York store for the pattern for the wood How does creating a store Italian label Redemption flooring as a chevron, or home compare to film (redemption.com). What using reclaimed wood production design? was your inspiration? from the Trentino–Alto With filmmaking you are LUCA GUADAGNINO: Adige region of Italy. cheating, you are creating We wanted to combine What kind of experience an illusion. When you the timelessness of Paris were you trying to create? build a space in reality and 1960s rock and roll It’s important that for a person to live in, you into something that customers can be in a cannot cheat. When you speaks to today. place that almost feels work on a movie set, you A rendering of the VIP What materials were used like home, but at the have to tone down the room at Redemption, in the store’s design? same time the space must ambition of your design a 4,000-square-foot We re-created the foyer heighten the experience. because a movie is a story fashion boutique of a typical Parisian You’ve had an interest in opening this fall in about people. Too much New York’s SoHo Haussmann building decor for a long time. What style detracts from the neighborhood. using travertine and prompted you to start your narrative.

added moldings and floral interior design studio? —Vanessa Lawrence GUADAGNINO: GETTY IMAGES

38 ELLE DECOR POINT OF VIEW Hit Refresh APPLE’S FLAGSHIP GETS A CUTTING-EDGE REDO FROM FOSTER + PARTNERS.

Apple temporarily sheathed the glass cube with a rainbow film in advance of the store’s reopening.

BY THE andSons Chocolatiers Designers Lauren Buxbaum Gordon and Nate Berkus give a sweet new look to an iconic Beverly Hills chocolate shop.

The entrance to 30 the Apple flagship varieties of chocolate on offer on New York’s Fifth Avenue. 280 hours to complete the paint-and– N 2006, WHEN INAUGURATED APPLE’S ground cacao mural on the ceiling original flagship on ’s Fifth Avenue, he planted a glass cube to mark the entrance to the underground space. After a two-year renovation, the 7,620 Icube remains—rebuilt to Jobs’s exact specifications. But tiles used in the redesign A stainless steel spiral staircase leads into the everything else about the store is entirely new. Apple underground retail space. tapped Foster + Partners—the architects behind the com- pany’s new headquarters in Cupertino, Cali- fornia—to expand and redesign the retail space. Created Eighty skylights dot the in the 1960s as the sunken plaza of the General Motors ceiling, which is covered in a semitranslucent Building, the outdoor area has been filled in and now fabric concealing LEDs. boasts rows of honey locust trees, water features, and 18 mirrored-glass “sky lenses” that rise like inverted moon craters for outdoor seating. Inside the cube, a stainless steel spiral staircase leads to a subterranean store whose lighting system was designed by a team that included an astrophysicist. “The goal was to turn an underground room into a happy space,” says Stefan Behling, head of studio at Foster + Partners, who worked closely with Apple’s chief design officer on the redesign. The ABOVE: A detail of andSons Chocola­ shop is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year—perfect for tiers’ cacao-pod ceiling mural. TOP: The

the city that never sleeps. —Ingrid Abramovitch redesigned shop in Beverly Hills. CHRISTOPHER CHOCOLATIERS: ANDSONS D; DAWSON/STUDIO CORY STORE: APPLE TALBERT PORTRAITS: HEATHER DIBBLE;

40 ELLE DECOR POINT OF VIEW New Wave THE MANHATTAN NORDSTROM FLAGSHIP

IS FUTURE-THINKING. A designer apparel display on the third floor featuring a BY VANESSA LAWRENCE chain-mail wall. BELOW: The Tower. PHOTOGRAPH BY CORY DAWSON

AWN CLARK, THE SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF of the landmark building. On the other 20th-century store design for Nordstrom, has an excellent building, he created a glass facade that has two layers answer for anyone wondering whether brick of light gold thread that lend it a wavelike shimmer. and mortar is still a worthwhile spiritual and The exterior of the portion fea- Dfinancial investment in a 21st-­century retail landscape. tures a four-story undulating glass wall whose curved “Thankfully, we’re not building in brick and mortar protrusions nod at the bay windows of the original anymore—it’s glass and light,” she quips. artist studios that used to dot . It also More specifically, Nordstrom’s first New York floods the seven floors (including the two subterra- flagship, which opens October 24, is a grand, nean ones) with natural light. 320,000-square-foot statement on the importance and Openness was the key aim for the interiors. The pleasure of IRL shopping in an ever more digitized flagship comprises, among other facets, a beauty world. Clark and the Seattle-based company spent hall, women’s fashion (including Valentino, Dries three years hunting for the perfect sizable location and Van Noten, and Givenchy), an expansive foot- landed on the base of the Central Park Tower luxury wear salon (the first Nordstrom in 1901 was a shoe condominium—the tallest residence in the world—at store), four restaurants (two of them from the Seat- the intersection of 57th Street and . In the tle chefs Tom Douglas and Ethan Stowell), and process, space opened up in two other adjacent prop- two bars. There are 19-foot ceilings and pieces and erties, a landmark building designed by Carrère and installations from 58 artists throughout the space. Hastings (the same architects of the main branch of Terra-cotta tiles in the same pattern as the glass the New York Public Library) and an older building wave wall line the elevators, a reference to the previously home to a location of the eatery Pax. Sud- terra-cotta of Nordstrom’s landmark Seattle head- denly, Nordstrom’s 21st-century future-eyeing store quarters. And the floor plan is markedly open, with became equally grounded in New York’s past. individual designer offerings separated by delicate “This city is like an architectural museum of chain-mail screens instead of the solid walls in tra- the ages. To have a lot of that captured in this ditional department stores. one project has been so much fun,” says Clark, “The beauty of some restraint in the design is who spent seven years overseeing the flagship that it lets the store evolve organically over time,” design in collaboration with James Carpenter Clark explains. “This business is very fluid, so what Design Associates. you have today is not what you’re going to have Carpenter restored the stone curtain wall tomorrow.” nordstrom.com ◾

Even More Modern On October 21, New York’s reopens after a $400 million ren- ovation spearheaded by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. We checked With these Perspex Lithuanian designer Pritzker Prize–winning out the new high-­design goodies Geometric wall mirrors, Roman Modzelewski’s architect Jean Nouvel on offer at the museum’s playful shapes meet iconic RM58 chair is designed the new On

legendary shop. store.moma.org postmodern pastels.­ $95. back. $1,250. Lines table light. $540. TOWER RENDERING: WORDSEARCH/RIVER FILM

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